


The One Where It's A Spy AU

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Anal Sex, Casual Sex, Competition, Espionage, Explicit Sexual Content, Humor, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Slice of Life, Spies & Secret Agents, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 20:16:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5679346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WARNING—MISSION CLASSIFIED (or the life and times and incredibly active sex life of Aiba Masaki, Junior Operations Officer with the Intel Japan Unit)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Where We Meet Our Protagonist

As he strolled into the hot, sweaty, bass-thumping confines of the club, there was only one thought crossing the mind of Aiba Masaki.

_God damn these pants are tight._

Studio 55 was “Tokyo’s Number One Disco Revival Destination!” and it was essential to dress the part. Aiba usually put up with the strange costumes his job required, if only because once in a while he was able to dress up in a tuxedo and order a martini shaken, not stirred. He’d sent his mom a selfie the last time he’d been able to pull a Tux-Essential mission, and she’d been so proud of him. She was, after all, the only person from his family that really knew the full extent of his job. His dad just assumed he was some underling at a company that required a lot of international travel.

To be fair, he kind of was an underling at a company that required a lot of international travel. For ten years now, since he’d been recruited out of college, Aiba Masaki had been a Junior Operations Officer with the IJU, the Intel Japan Unit. Funded separately from other Japanese intelligence-gathering organizations, the IJU’s mission was one that Aiba agreed with. They covertly gathered information and took down bad guys, but they were not authorized to torture or kill anyone. 

Other “spy” agencies looked down on the IJU for being “wimps,” but Aiba would be a wimp any day over a murderer. Because they didn’t do any of the nasty stuff, Aiba’s career had mostly consisted of sitting around listening to a wiretap, communicating with assets in the field, and doing paperwork for his senior officers. He was trained the same as anyone at a higher pay grade (and he was damn good at firing his tranquilizer gun), but it was rare that he was called upon to do anything particularly “Bond, James Bond”-like. He’d never leapt off a moving train or stolen a jet pack, but he had hotwired a car before, and he was still kind of proud of pulling that off on the fly.

Tonight he was in the field, though, where he preferred to be. His mission was fairly classified, and even he didn’t quite know who he was supposed to be meeting. During his briefing earlier that day at headquarters, he’d been told that he would be the handler for a new asset and would be entirely responsible for managing that asset and ensuring the person’s safety. Handling an asset completely on his own, that was a task usually given to a Senior Operations Officer, not one still at the Junior level, but it seemed like his superiors were pleased with his work and trusted him. There was nothing that made Aiba happier at work than knowing he was trusted to do a good job.

The meet-up point was at Studio 55, and Aiba did his best to blend in with his surroundings. It was pretty easy to do given the costume Nino had arranged for him. Ninomiya Kazunari, the IJU’s Supply Chief, preferred to work with gadgets, with stun darts and watches that doubled as two-way radios. When it came to costumes, he always delivered but not when it came to comfort. That night Nino, with his usual smartass grin, had presented Aiba with a colorful pink shirt, insanely tight purple bellbottom trousers, and white platform shoes. He’d told Nino to keep the gold chains, please and thank you.

It was currently taking everything he had not to try adjusting himself. Nino had smiled, referring to the purple monstrosity as a “pair of nut-huggers” and Aiba couldn’t exactly fault him for describing them as such. The slacks clung to him from waistband to knee, where they tapered out into the characteristic bell shape. When he’d come out of the changing room, waiting for Nino to hand over his comm device, Nino had nearly fallen to the floor laughing at him. Then he’d come up to Aiba, grinning from ear to ear. “If I didn’t already know you weren’t circumcised, Aiba-shi, I’d know for sure now.”

Aiba needed to stop having casual sex with his Supply Chief.

He made it to the bar, somehow managing to wriggle out a bill from his pocket and buying himself a Singapore Sling that had a light-up disco ball ice cube glowing at the bottom of his Collins glass. He thanked the bartender and shuffled off, having a sip.

“Drinking on the job, are we?” said the voice in his head.

He grinned, taking a noisy slurp as some song from Donna Summer echoed through the club. “Shut up.”

“I won’t report you,” Becky’s teasing voice continued. “But you should know how jealous I am.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, weaving through some other bellbottomed patrons and heading for a staircase toward the rear of the club, hoping his pants wouldn’t split as he climbed.

He and Becky had worked together for years. She was an audio tech, not cleared for field duty, but she managed communications for many Junior Operations Officers in the field. If something went wrong, Aiba could always count on Becky’s voice in his ear, reassuring him or helping to find him an exit. But on nights like tonight where all Aiba had to do was initiate contact with a new asset, Becky’s voice was mostly there to bother him. She couldn’t even see what he was wearing, since they were only linked through the comm device in his ear, but she’d had her own comments about his pants, mostly jokes about him being “full of surprises,” whatever that meant.

“Arriving at the second floor,” he said, stepping out of the way as a young woman with really high platform shoes of her own nearly toppled into the wall.

“Okay,” Becky said, “according to the case file, your new asset was instructed to wait for you in a booth. Apparently a booth that has a large framed poster of ABBA hanging over it.”

“What does ABBA look like?” he asked quietly. 

While the main, ground floor of Studio 55 was all dance floor aside from the bar, the upper level mainly consisted of booths tucked back against the wall. As he walked by, drink in hand, he saw plenty of people using the booths as places to down colorful things in shot glasses or sneak a kiss. Each booth had some sort of poster hanging over it, though he could have sworn he’d seen the movie poster for Saturday Night Fever three times already.

“I dunno,” Becky said, “probably four Scandinavian-looking folks?”

“Helpful,” he replied, snickering.

But then he reached a booth on the opposite end of the club from the staircase and didn’t even have to look at the poster hanging over it (four Scandinavians, indeed) to know that the person sitting there was the asset he was looking for.

“Ah, you know, I don’t think the comms are working, I’ll catch up with you when I’m done,” Aiba told Becky, tugging the thing from his ear and dumping it in his glass. It sunk to the bottom by the glowing disco ball. Nino was going to be so mad.

The person in the booth looked him up and down, running his finger along the rim of his own glass and unapologetically licking his lips. “Aiba-chan. Long time no see.”

Aiba hurriedly sat down, scooting his purple polyestered butt along the booth until he was side by side with his new asset. “You?” he whispered in excitement. It had been two, nearly three years! “I’m supposed to meet with you?”

The asset leaned back against the booth, smiling cheerfully. He was in an outfit reminiscent of the Saturday Night Fever posters Aiba had passed. A white suit with matching white pants and a vest. Under the vest he wore a black shirt with a huge pointed collar, the shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest to reveal a gold necklace with a hideous fish medallion against his sun-kissed skin.

“You’re supposed to meet with _me_ ,” Ohno Satoshi said, winking.

“I could kiss you!”

“I wish you could,” Ohno lamented in his usual calm and collected voice. “Unfortunately I’m here for business and not for pleasure, Aiba-chan. And even though you pulled Becky out of your ear, this is still a serious meeting and we have to be professional.”

Aiba raised an eyebrow.

“Although you look really great in those pants. It’s like I can see your pubes, man!” Ohno complained, poking Aiba in the arm in frustration.

Ah, but it really had been too long! When Aiba had been in his first months of training at the IJU, one of the Operations Officers training him had been Ohno Satoshi, an agent two years his senior. Unlike a lot of people who worked at IJU, Ohno was kind of on the short side, not the flashy type who was super gung ho about taking down bad guys. He was laid-back and relaxed and if he had his way, he’d sleep in every day or indulge in his favorite hobby, deep sea fishing.

But Ohno wasn’t someone to be underestimated. Where some agents were brought on board for their looks, Ohno had been brought in for the sheer amount of skills he possessed. Nobody could pick a lock or crack a safe like Ohno Satoshi could, but he was always so humble about his accomplishments. Of all the people who’d trained him, Aiba felt he’d learned the most from Ohno. Simply get in, do the job, get out. Lessons that still kept Aiba focused all these years later.

Then again, it had been really difficult to stay focused so many years back when he and Ohno had first started sleeping together. It was against the rules for a superior officer to enter a relationship with a junior, but Ohno had never been one for following every rule in the IJU handbook. It was so easy to be with Ohno. He didn’t talk much, but he was kind. He was always patient with Aiba, who could sometimes be a bit clumsy or unprepared when it came to learning something new. And being such a master with picking locks, he was exceptionally skilled with his hands.

But in their line of work, they’d always kept things casual. They traveled a lot, undertook missions that took them into dangerous territory. Getting too attached could be a real problem. Then a few years back Ohno had been given a deep cover mission to infiltrate some smuggling ring in Brazil. Aiba honestly hadn’t heard from him since, but Ohno had always been difficult to reach, never remembering to tell people he’d changed his phone number. Aiba never held it against him. 

“How was Brazil?”

Ohno had a sip from his drink. “Just got back a month ago. The Caipirinha Gang is no more.”

“What?” Aiba cried, remembering then to keep his voice down. This was still a secret meeting, even though it was with a long-time friend. “But their organization was huge!”

“Not now,” Ohno said with a small smile, his usual tactic for deflecting attention away from his extraordinary accomplishments.

Aiba punched Ohno in the arm. “Well congratulations. Thanks for all your hard work.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t call you. Since I’ve been back, they’ve roped me in for another deep cover mission so I’ve been stuck doing preparations for it. And that’s actually why you’re here.”

Aiba perked up, seeing that Ohno was ready to get down to business. “So whatever this deep cover mission is, they’ve assigned me as your handler.”

“Yep,” Ohno replied. “I asked for you specifically.”

“Oh?” Aiba asked, feeling suddenly that this assignment was way more important than he’d envisioned. It also explained why a junior officer had been given a task above his pay grade, since Ohno had a lot of pull at the IJU.

Ohno leaned closer, speaking softer, even though the music was mostly drowning out his voice. “It’s EVIL Inc. They want me to do things just like Brazil. Get in, turn enough of them to bring it down from inside.”

Aiba couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Ever since the IJU’s inception, EVIL Inc. had been their main enemy. A Japanese yakuza group, they were officially the Shimmering Lotus Clan, but at the IJU they’d had their corny nickname for years. Agent Daigo, one of the other trainees from when Aiba had joined up, had come up with the English acronym to fit. 

EVIL Inc. was short for Essentially Vile, Intellectually Lacking, since they tended to hire some of the dumbest people imaginable at the lower ends of their organization. The getaway drivers, the petty crooks. For years, slowly but surely, the IJU had been whittling away at EVIL Inc., but for every dummy they managed to tail, corner, and properly arrest, another two seemed to get hired on. The organization had deep pockets and had been a nuisance in the homeland for decades with their rackets in mail fraud, loan sharking, and extortion.

“You really think you can do it? All on your own?”

Ohno shrugged. “I just have to turn the right people. I’ve made some contacts, and I know they’re already following me, to make sure I’m not some IJU agent. I’ve got a whole cover identity set-up, I’m a thief, specializing in art theft. What I need you to do is meet with me, and whatever info I find out, you pass along to the higher-ups. Straight to the top.” He pressed his hand to Aiba’s thigh, his hand warm and firm as he remembered. “Can I trust you?”

“I won’t let you down,” Aiba assured him, not really minding that Ohno wasn’t moving his hand away yet. “But how can we meet if they’re already tailing you?” He looked around, scanning the club for anyone that might give himself away as an EVIL Inc. thug.

“I’ve got a safe house near Roppongi Hills. When I need you to meet me, you’ll get a call from a burner phone. It’ll be Gary Grouper singing. Then you’ll know to come by that evening.”

Aiba could barely keep it together, wanting to crack up laughing. Gary Grouper was a gift he had given to Ohno for his birthday shortly after they’d met. It was one of those obnoxious singing fish you hung on the wall. Gary Grouper “sang” the chorus of the Japanese version of YMCA. It was a pretty good plan though, especially one between handler and asset. The song held a different meaning for Aiba and Ohno than it might have for anyone else listening in on the call.

“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed, trying to act nonchalant as he draped his hand on top of Ohno’s.

Ohno winked at him once, giving his thigh a squeeze before sliding out of the booth and adjusting the lapels of his blindingly white leisure suit jacket. “I’ll be in touch with more details. It’ll be a pleasure to work with you again, Aiba-chan.”

Ohno waved goodbye, disappearing easily into the crowd. Aiba stayed in the booth a few minutes longer, nervous about the mission and having a sip of his drink.

“Blecccchhhh!” he complained, sticking out his tongue and holding the glass away from himself, finally remembering that he’d dumped his comm device in it. It had given the alcohol a nasty, metallic taste. Nino’s revenge, even before Nino found out what he’d done to one of his precious gadgets.

Well, hopefully he’d be more on the ball when it came to his new mission: keeping his asset (and all of his fine assets) safe.


	2. The One Where We Meet His Rival

“There’s powdered sugar in your hair,” Aiba teased as he got his own tray arranged on the table in the main briefing room.

“Be quiet,” Becky complained. “I was working late last night, so I didn’t even have time to shower after I baked them.”

“Ah, so that’s what that smell is.”

Becky punched him in the arm, and he tried not to let her see how much it hurt. She had never really learned the difference between when a situation required a fake punch and a real one. He’d have a bruise for sure later.

The glamorous spy world wasn’t really all that glamorous most of the time. Today was the IJU holiday party, and as he had for the last several years, Aiba was participating in the Best Brownie contest. He’d won a few years back with a recipe he’d gotten from his mom, but the last few years nobody had really been on board for some of the concoctions he’d presented. His mabo tofu brownies had made a few people sick (ones with weak stomachs, obviously) and his natto with brownie chunk topping had nearly gotten him banned from the contest. Punishment for innovation, he always thought bitterly.

Like most years, he was assigned to a table with Becky since they were from the same unit. She had come in third place last year, a few places ahead of Aiba. But really, adding pink and blue sprinkles to the brownie batter didn’t make them taste that much better. She only won because they were cute. But Aiba could let these things slide. Becky was his friend, and he never stayed annoyed with her for long.

The briefing room, usually home to important meetings, was transformed today. Thanks to a helping hand from the IT department, the main view screen was not showing the world map, but a winter scene of falling snow on a continuous loop. The chairs had all been cleared out so the brownie display tables could be arranged in a horseshoe pattern. The walls were adorned with colorful garland and twinkling lights.

It was a beautiful scene, a perfect day for a Best Brownie contest, but then _he_ had to show up.

Becky elbowed Aiba in the side when the door opened, and the man with broad shoulders and that unforgettable face came marching in like he was the king of the world. Or at least the Best Brownie contest. Even though it was pretty obvious that he had not just come from a kitchen, he was wearing a matching pair of purple oven mitts as he carried in his own tray of brownies, heading for the table just beside Aiba and Becky.

The space at his table had already been cleared by some of the trainees because heaven forbid Agent Matsumoto Jun’s place in the Best Brownie horseshoe be a mess. He set down his tray and removed his oven mitts, shooting Aiba a menacing glare. And because Agent Matsumoto had the face that he had (thick eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, sensual lips), even his menacing glares were handsome as hell.

“Morning, Jun-kun,” Aiba said, offering him a friendly wave.

Matsumoto ignored him, reaching in the back pocket of his perfectly form-fitting suit slacks for his stainless steel brownie spatula. He proceeded to neatly cut up his brownies, arranging them on a plate that he then started to delicately sprinkle with powdered sugar one of his underlings had left there for him.

Aiba sighed, rolling his eyes at the usual snub. He was older than Matsumoto by about half a year, but they’d joined IJU at the same time. Matsumoto was one of the agency “elites,” having achieved some of the highest scores on both his written and physical aptitude tests. In addition to his many skills, he was also quite suave and attractive, often pulling mission assignments that required him to seduce information out of his targets both male and female.

The only problem, it seemed, was that Aiba had scored higher than him in a few areas and even after a decade of attempts, Matsumoto still couldn’t beat him. Matsumoto had never beaten Aiba’s mile run time. Matsumoto had lost to Aiba again and again at the Annual IJU Arm Wrestling Friendly Exhibition Match. And most embarrassing, apparently, was the time they’d both been assigned to infiltrate a surfing club and poor Jun-kun had wiped out while attempting to ride a higher wave than Aiba had.

For all these reasons, Aiba really liked Matsumoto Jun. Aiba was always impressed by Jun’s diligence and commitment to the IJU’s mission. He admired how hard Jun worked to bring down villainous thugs and their bosses. He also thought Jun made some really good brownies. But none of that mattered because Matsumoto Jun considered Aiba his “ultimate rival” and was never very nice to him. Aiba didn’t quite understand why, since they were on the same side. They were both good guys, so did it really matter who could run faster?

Well, in Matsumoto Jun’s mind, yeah it did.

Becky leaned past Aiba, getting some of the powdered sugar in her hair onto Aiba’s shirt. “Hey Matsumoto-kun, I’m taking you out this year!”

Matsumoto narrowed his eyes and raised his spatula, gesturing at Becky in a ‘throat slicing’ manner that Aiba thought was a bit tasteless. But Becky only laughed, repeating the gesture with her own spatula. Aiba finished arranging his fairly tame brownies (topped with cinnamon sugar) on his serving plate.

“It’s not that big a deal, is it?” Aiba whispered so only Becky could hear him. “We all get to enjoy the sugar rush.”

“You’re just mad because he never lets you have one,” she teased.

Even though he was entitled to try everyone’s brownies, Matsumoto always excluded Aiba from sampling one of his. “This one’s for my friend,” Jun would say or “The corner piece is for Director Kimura, you can’t have that one. Or the ones around it.” Usually Becky or Nino had to break him off a piece from their own so he could see what all the fuss was about. He’d even tried to compliment Jun’s baking prowess in hopes of mending their one-sided, neverending battle, but Aiba’s praises fell on deaf ears.

The contest got underway, leaving Aiba little time to worry about Jun’s negativity. Nino found him, looping an arm through his as they strolled around to sample the others. Nino never participated in the contest because he preferred to just take the free food and leave. He was kind of a cheapskate. “Maruyama-kun drew Pokemon on each of this brownies this year.”

“Oh?” Aiba said. “Are they good?”

Nino shook his head, his lips unapologetically covered in chocolate and crumbs. “Nope, terrible as always.”

Aiba tried not to smile. Like his mother always said, it was the foundation of the house that mattered, not the color of the roof. They bypassed the cheerful Agent Maruyama’s tray of brownies in favor of sampling some from Agent Tabe beside him.

“And our Jun-kun came to win again, didn’t he?” Nino asked, observing from across the room where Jun was still placing the finishing touches on his, sprinkling bits of gold leaf onto each perfectly sliced brownie.

“I really don’t get him,” Aiba said. Things had been especially frosty between them the last few weeks, once Jun had discovered that Aiba was assigned to be Ohno’s handler all by himself. Jun, despite his incredible ability to suss out information from targets, had never been given such a high profile job.

Nino stopped them, yanking a napkin from one of the tables and dabbing at his mouth. “He’s in love with you, dumbass.”

“What?!” Aiba hollered, earning him annoyed stares from several brownie enthusiasts walking the room. “You always say that. There’s no way.”

“Aiba-shi,” Nino continued, shoving his dirtied napkin into Aiba’s hand for him to throw away, which he did because he put up with Nino too easily. “I’m not joking around. You should see the way he looks at you sometimes.”

Aiba shook his head. “He looks like he wants to poison me and throw me in the gutter. He hates me, he always has! Just because I’m better at surfing, that’s so petty! He’s a great agent in his own right, I don’t know why he treats everything like a competition and…”

Nino grabbed Aiba’s face, gripping his chin and turning him so he was looking across the room. Matsumoto Jun let out a little “eek” noise of fright before schooling his face back into his more permanent “I hate you, Aiba!” scowl, turning back to chomping down on one of Becky’s brownies.

“He doesn’t like me,” Aiba mumbled, his mouth squished by Nino’s tight grip.

“He was staring at you.”

Aiba felt himself blushing a bit. “So? Maybe he tried my brownies and was thinking ‘damn it, these brownies are fantastic, Aiba Masaki has done it again!’”

“You’re just not seeing it,” Nino said, voice full of disappointment. “He just tells himself over and over that he hates you when really, all he wants to do is hook up with you. I don’t know if it’s because you’re better than him at so many things and he thinks that by fucking you he’ll absorb your abilities and…”

Aiba pulled away from Nino roughly. “Oh, stop already!” He lowered his voice, a bit embarrassed because after all, Matsumoto Jun was smoking hot. “Don’t get my hopes up.”

“Aiba-shi, you’re like the world’s nicest person,” Nino continued anyway, trailing behind him as they sampled some treats from Director Kimura’s table. He usually just brought in some from a bakery, tending to get awarded second place because nobody wanted to piss him off and lose their job.

“I’m not…”

“No, you are, which is why you can’t grasp the allure of hate sex. Because you don’t hate anybody.”

“Not true,” Aiba countered. “I hate criminals. I hate people who hurt children and animals and…”

Nino shoved one of Director Kimura’s store-bought brownies into his mouth, shutting him up. “Matsumoto Jun respects you because you’re better than him. But at the same time, he hates you because you’re better than him. He’s a complicated guy, or at least he thinks he is. And I swear, he probably won’t get over it until you two hook up. That by fucking his rival he’ll be the real winner in the end.”

“Ahh hmmpffff hmmm arry tmmmm!”

“Yes,” Nino acknowledged, “I know you’d hump him any time if he offered, but I don’t think he’s ready yet to make the offer.”

Aiba swallowed down the brownie, looking across the room and for the first time, being a bit disappointed that Matsumoto Jun wasn’t angrily staring back. “So you really think that’s what he wants?”

“Just look at a tightly wound guy like him,” Nino teased, wrapping an arm around Aiba’s back. “Every time you crush him at the arm wrestling tournament, he probably goes home and masturbates about it.”

“Nino…”

“If you want it as badly as he does, you’re going to have to provoke him back. Thus far, you’ve managed to piss him off by beating him in all that athletic stuff, but if you really want him to come after you, you need to start rubbing it in his face. Be just as much of an asshole to him as he is to you, and I just know it’ll turn him on. He’s got that tough face, but you know he’s a secret masochist,” Nino said. 

Aiba wasn’t quite sure why Nino was so invested in this, but Aiba presumed Nino had installed a hidden camera somewhere in Aiba’s apartment and was hoping for the opportunity to record and enjoy an Aiba and Matsumoto sex tape.

“But I don’t want to be mean to him,” Aiba pointed out. “I like him.”

“And that just annoys him all the more. He thinks you don’t care.”

“But I don’t. I’m not in a competition with him…”

“Then continue to be brownie snubbed,” Nino said. “I’m trying to help you.”

He caught sight of Jun once again. He was in the midst of shoving Aiba’s own brownies into his mouth with alarming speed, looking around in paranoia. Wow. Maybe Jun really _did_ like him.

“He’s got two and a half brownies in his mouth right now,” Nino announced. “That’s an incredible capacity. He has to be amazing at deep throating bigger…”

“This is a work event,” Becky interrupted, wrapping her own arm around Aiba’s back so that Aiba was in the middle of a friend sandwich. “Why are you polluting it with your sex talk?”

Nino grinned at Becky. “It’s the holidays, Becky-chan, and it’s obvious to everyone in our department that Matsumoto Jun wants to wake up and find Masaki here in his stocking.”

“Judging is in twenty minutes,” Becky declared. “If you manage to tear yourselves away from your neverending plans to seduce your co-workers, be sure and clap when I’m announced as the winner!”

She went off in a huff, earning a chuckle from Nino.

“Let’s finish our rounds,” Aiba said, his voice barely above a whisper now that he had fallen into a dangerous trap, a trap where he was reminding himself over and over just how much super spy Matsumoto Jun could put in his mouth at one time.

They returned to their tables in time for judging, Nino sitting back behind him and Becky, indifferently playing a game on his phone while Aiba kept sneaking peeks at Matsumoto Jun beside him. All these years, it had seemed rather straightforward. They were both really great agents, but Matsumoto had been angry and jealous that he wasn’t the best at everything. And so Matsumoto, kind of childish for his age, had treated him like an enemy.

Matsumoto caught him looking. “Your brownies were gross,” Jun said, holding his nose in the air. For the very first time, Aiba really listened. Jun wasn’t really insulting him. Jun was daring him to fight back.

It felt a little odd, but Aiba put his nose in the air in a fairly exact imitation. “Well yours were practically inedible.” He felt horrible immediately after saying so, since he’d tried a piece that Becky had snuck for him and they were great as always. 

Peeking from the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the slightest smile on Jun’s face, but he hid it again quickly. Senior Operations Officer Nagase, the lead judge for this year’s contest, tapped on the microphone.

“It’s time to announce the grand prize winner,” Agent Nagase said, the corners of his mouth smeared with chocolate, as though he’d only just stopped eating. “Congratulations to Junior Operations Officer Matsumoto Jun with his Stay Gold brownies!”

“Yes!” Jun shouted, pumping his fist while everyone applauded. Once Nagase went on to announce the second and third place winners, Jun leaned over, resting his hand on Aiba’s shoulder and whispering in his ear. “Practically inedible, huh?”

He turned his head quickly, surprising Jun when their lips almost touched. He lowered his voice, entering what Nino had long praised as his ‘deep and sexy’ vocal range. “I’m coming for you, Matsumoto. Just you wait.”

Jun backed away with a look of pure shock on his face, bumping into his table and knocking his purple oven mitts to the floor. The guy was practically shaking when Director Kimura came by to congratulate him, and Aiba felt a stirring in his gut. He’d pretty much just declared war on his own colleague - so why did it feel so damn good?


	3. The One Where Nino Has Ulterior Motives

It had been a crazy long and crazy stressful day. It was rare that Aiba spent a lot of time in the offices of IJU Director Kimura. Still fairly low on the totem pole despite his many years of service, Aiba usually reported to a Senior Operations Officer, who took his intel and fashioned it into a proper report or briefing. But with Ohno’s new undercover mission to infiltrate EVIL Inc., Aiba was expected to meet with Kimura and other upper management on a weekly basis now.

It meant scrupulously going over the notes he’d taken during and after any of his meet-ups with Ohno. His handwriting had never been the best, so he was starting to lose sleep over whether he’d meant to include this character or that. And then when he presented his findings to Director Kimura, Vice-Director Sakamoto, and all the other senior officers with kind of scary looking, always serious faces, he had to be just as serious as them. That meant no funny notes at the bottom of his PowerPoint presentations and certainly no drawing dicks with the laser pointer when directing attention at the screen.

It left him feeling pretty darn important and essential but also more exhausted than he’d ever been in his career. And that included the mission where he’d gone undercover in a men’s cheerleading troupe for a month. Ohno was still in the process of immersing himself in the criminal world, but already he’d been able to start supplying Aiba with names of current, mid-level EVIL Inc. henchmen. It was mainly Aiba’s job to cross-reference these names against IJU and Interpol databases, to summarize the findings for Kimura.

They had questions for almost every point he made during meetings, and they kept him on his toes. So after another crazy meeting, something scheduled for thirty minutes that had turned into a two-hour pseudo-interrogation by his own superiors, Aiba just wanted to indulge in some comfort food and maybe a cuddle.

Instead, he arrived in the Supply Lab to find an unsympathetic Nino waiting for him. “Here,” Nino said as soon as the sliding doors closed behind Aiba. “Eat this.”

Aiba approached warily, holding out his palm. Nino placed a jelly bean-sized capsule in his hand and strolled back to his workstation. “This isn’t a cyanide pill, is it? Because I’m not in the mood for jokes like that today.”

“Eat it,” Nino said, not confirming or denying Aiba’s question, now perched on top of his stool, his short legs dangling and his white lab coat sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

Aiba did as ordered because technically Nino did outrank him as the chief of his division. “Do I swallow it or chew it first?”

“Chew.”

He chomped down on the thing, raising his eyebrows when a rather refreshing pineapple flavor coated his tongue. “Hey, this isn’t bad,” he remarked, watching Nino scribble some notes. “What is it?”

“Laxative.”

“What?” Aiba screeched, nearly gagging.

Nino giggled. “Just kidding. There’s a tracker in it. I want to see if it still works if you chew on it.” Nino gestured to the screen at his workstation. “Come here, have a look. It’s harmless for your digestive tract.”

Aiba came over, still tasting pineapple. He rested his hand on Nino’s shoulder and watched the screen. There was a vaguely human-looking green outline on the screen labeled “Aiba M.” Where the sorta-green sorta-Aiba’s throat was, he could see a blinking red light. The light was already descending down into his esophagus.

“So what’s the conclusion?”

“You biting into it didn’t destroy it,” Nino declared, tapping his desk in a rhythmic fashion. “That was from my newest jar of prototypes. What did you have?”

“Pineapple.”

“Pineapple has tested really well with everyone,” Nino noted, writing more in his notebook. “The brass is looking for some off the wall tracking solutions. In case comms ever go down or the bad guys have some sort of deactivating zapper, what have you. Based on regular digestion, it should dissolve by the time it reaches your intestines. Stomach acid should get most of it. Right now, we’ve got it on a three hour tracking schedule, but ideally we’re aiming for something that could last a full day.”

“I’m not going to poop out something that blinks or beeps, am I?” Nino had fed him worse things in all the years they’d known each other.

“Nah, not this time. And thanks.”

“You know, you could tell me what you’re doing first and then force me to eat something.”

Nino shrugged. 

Aiba sighed, leaning heavily against Nino’s workstation. “Come on, I wanna get out of here. They were biting my head off and you know I spend the whole time trying not to cry. My head’s killing me.”

Nino chuckled. “How tired are you anyway?”

“The tiredest.”

“Does that mean you can’t do me a favor?” Nino asked, his eyes wide and his face full of his usual childlike impishness.

“I already ate your pineapple tracker.”

“That’s a work favor,” Nino pointed out. “I need a personal favor. I’ve got something else you can do for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I’m listening.”

Despite how tired Aiba was both mentally and physically, an hour later he found himself in Nino’s living room pulling particle board pieces out of an IKEA box. From the picture on the box it was supposed to be a massive entertainment center with shelves upon completion. Nino, an avid gamer who’d survived for years by stacking his various systems and his TV on top of milk crates, had finally decided to invest in some actual furniture, even if it was from IKEA.

Aiba paged through the instruction manual, sighing. Here he was, one of Japan’s best trained covert operatives, and he was stuck putting together the “Klapthropp” entertainment center. “This is going to take forever,” he whined. He looked over his shoulder, finding Nino curled up in his chair, the only other piece of furniture currently in his living room. He was engrossed in one of his GameBoy games. “Oi, you over there!”

Nino didn’t even look up. “You can do it. I believe in you.”

“Ugh, really?”

Even though it was really rude of Nino to have him come all the way to his apartment and then put his furniture together all by himself, Aiba was not the type of person to let a friend down. Even if he was kind of ready to pass out and fall asleep on top of the IKEA box. 

While Nino’s game pinged and beeped and boomed, Aiba methodically got to work setting up the base of the entertainment center, turning screws and tightening bolts. Nino only got up once to use the bathroom, returning and simply patting Aiba on the head in thanks before getting back to his game. “Coulda paid the IKEA people to put it together for you,” Aiba grumbled under his breath, fumbling around for Side H to connect to Junction 3.

“Costs too much,” Nino replied, letting out a little cheer of victory as his character apparently advanced to a new level.

By the time midnight rolled around, Aiba was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He flopped onto his back, sighing. He’d probably gotten a third of the way done with the Klapthropp.

“Nino, I need to go home.”

“Stay over. I’m not paying for you to take a cab.”

“Wasn’t I supposed to be rewarded for my efforts?”

Finally Aiba heard Nino shut off his game. “Alright.” He came over, nudging Aiba with his foot. “You’re not done though.”

“I worked really hard!”

“You did. Well, I guess you’ll have to finish it tomorrow. For now, you better get up.”

Somehow Nino was able to pull him to his feet, and he got Aiba into the bathroom. He took a quick bath, colder than he preferred just so he didn’t fall asleep in the tub and drown himself. When he got out Nino was waiting for him, hands on his pajama-clad hips. “Alright,” Nino said, “I did say I’d make this worth your while. On your back.”

Finally, after his long day. Nino always messed around, took advantage of Aiba’s kindness, but he really did care. Aiba lay back, putting his arms back and resting his head against his hands. “Massage?”

“Better,” Nino said, quickly managing to tug Aiba’s boxers off. Ah, definitely better than a massage. 

Though Aiba was tired, Nino was always a miracle worker with his hands and mouth. After a few teasing kisses along the sensitive insides of his thighs, Nino got a hand around his cock and started to stroke him. Aiba let out a groan of happiness. Nino, cheapo that he was, never offered monetary rewards for all the favors Aiba had done for him in the past. But Nino was good in bed, and that was a reward in itself.

He bit his lip once Nino added his mouth to the mix, continuing his methodical strokes as he dragged his tongue over the sensitive head of Aiba’s increasingly hard cock. “So good,” Aiba couldn’t help moaning, hardly able to keep himself from thrusting his hips up to fuck Nino’s hot mouth.

Nino may have been a slack off in areas that weren’t games or gadgets, but he gave his full attention to blowjobs without fail. Aiba groaned, putting a hand on Nino’s head, grasping his hair as Nino took him deeper, sucked him harder. Aiba was just about to offer a friendly warning, to let Nino know he was close to coming, but then Nino stopped with such sudden abruptness that Aiba let out a strangled little noise of surprise.

“Oi!” he muttered, feeling dreadfully exposed, lying on his back in his t-shirt and socks, his hard and needy cock so thoughtlessly abandoned. “Oi!”

Nino laughed, crawling up to lie at Aiba’s side, pulling his blanket up and over them. “You didn’t finish putting it together,” Nino said rudely, twisting Aiba’s nipple through his shirt. “When you finish, so will I.”

Annoyed, Aiba moved his hand to grab his cock and finish the job himself, but Nino’s grip on him was suddenly tight.

“Come on. Surely you can wait another day?” Nino teased, leaning over to kiss him.

“But…but…”

“All you have to do is finish the Klapthropp, Aiba-shi. Then you’ll get the full reward.”

Aiba had to admit that this was kind of a fun challenge, even though he was kind of pissed at the same time. He turned his back to Nino, pretending to be grumpy about it as Nino eagerly took up the role of big spoon.

But the next night he was back in Nino’s apartment, diligently working on Operation: Finish the Klapthropp. It had been difficult to get through the workday, Nino coming by his desk while he was working on transcribing a wiretap. “If you want,” Nino had said, massaging his shoulders, “I can do some ball stuff. If you want ball stuff.”

As unsexy as Nino could make things sound, it didn’t really matter later when Aiba came back from a short Klapthropp break only to be pushed against the wall to receive a very demanding kiss. Before too long, Nino was sliding down, getting on his knees and tugging the zipper of Aiba’s jeans down. Soon they were at his knees along with his boxers. 

“I’m not done with the Klapthropp, Nino,” Aiba moaned as Nino started stroking him yet again, this time teasing with little flicks of his tongue against his sack. “Oi, I’m not done…”

Nino ignored him, and Aiba just gave in to it, thumping his head back against the wall as Nino took his sweet time with his hands and mouth. Soon he was gently cupping and squeezing with his hand in time with each devastating suck. It had been a while since Aiba had received such thorough attention, but as he expected, he was just on the edge of coming when Nino stopped what he was doing and backed away.

Aiba, allowed to get away with things that most lovers wouldn’t tolerate, let his heavy, neglected cock smack against Nino’s chin in irritation. “This is mean, you know.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Nino joked, getting to his feet and then onto his tiptoes to kiss Aiba’s cheek. “Now put your pants back on, you can probably get another shelf done tonight, right?”

Despite the need for release, Aiba endured for one more day, even when Nino came walking by before Aiba’s meeting with Director Kimura, sucking on a lollipop and reminding Aiba that there was still work to be done. To retaliate, after Aiba finished his meeting he waited for Nino to take a bathroom break and then stole his spare apartment key from the drawer he kept it in at his workstation. 

By the time Nino came home, none the wiser about Aiba’s theft, the stupid entertainment center was not only put together perfectly, but Aiba had hooked up Nino’s TV and was in the midst of playing Mario Kart.

He was also not wearing pants.

“For all my pain and suffering,” Aiba said, gesturing down to his dick, “you better swallow.”

Nino, not at all surprised to find a half-naked colleague in his living room, simply dropped his bag in the genkan and unlaced his sneakers. His voice was almost indifferent. “Don’t I always though?” 

It didn’t take long, Aiba sitting in Nino’s favorite gaming chair with his legs spread and an obedient Nino on his knees before him, taking his cock to the back of his throat without complaint. 

“I swear,” Aiba said, “if you stop this time, I’m going to jack off all over your PlayStation.”

Nino slipped Aiba’s cock from his mouth with a filthy, wet pop. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want that.”

For the last three days he’d been just another one of Nino’s experiments. But instead of a pineapple tracker down his gullet, he’d been waiting and waiting and waiting for Nino to get him off. It had been really crazy difficult, with the teasing and with Matsumoto Jun’s cute butt a few cubicles away, offering a scowl that meant more to Aiba than it ever had before.

But oh, it was triple the reward, or at least it felt like that when he was no longer able to form words, knowing only the tight warmth of Nino’s mouth and the prickling tease of Nino’s fingertips along his thighs. Nino gave Aiba’s knee a squeeze, and he looked down to see the adoration and teasing love in his friend’s eyes. Nino winked and that was all it took. He gasped, shaking so hard he thought he was going to slide off of the stupid chair and onto the floor. But he held steady, laughing in relief as Nino swallowed down three long days of desperation in one impressive go.

He wiped his mouth and stared up at Aiba with a grin. “I should tell you this now while you’re in such a good mood. I’ve just ordered a new dresser for my bedroom. How would you like to put it together for me?”


	4. The One Where Aiba’s In It To Win It

Nino was loitering on the pool deck waiting for him as Aiba emerged from the locker room clad in his wetsuit and swim cap. He moved toward the bleachers, beginning his stretches as Nino came over to him.

“Phase one is complete,” Nino said, a tinge of wickedness in his tone.

Aiba took a deep breath, knowing this was his last chance to turn back and be a decent human being. Today was the Annual IJU Triathlon, which took place at headquarters. The event was open to all employees male and female, no matter your rank. Even a few members of the janitorial staff participated every year. In a modified version of Olympic triathlons, they swam first, using the agency’s Olympic-sized pool to complete a 1,500 meter swim.

From there they changed into cycling clothes and ran from the pool deck (carefully) outside to the track that circled the perimeter of headquarters. From there it was a 40 kilometer bike race and then a transition to the running track back inside the IJU’s gymnasium facilities. Participants then finished the triathlon with a 10 kilometer run.

Aiba had been participating in the triathlon every year since he’d joined, usually finishing in the top ten, if not the top five. He was one of the fastest runners, but cycling wasn’t his strong suit. He didn’t usually care much about coming in first anyhow, since it was fun to simply compete with his colleagues and have a good time. But this year things would be a bit different because for the very first time, Aiba had issued a challenge and he had no choice but to keep to his word.

For the last week, he’d been sending taunting emails to Matsumoto Jun, although Nino had been helping him with phrasing. “Telling Jun-kun that you’re going to kick his butt is so pedestrian,” Nino had complained, retyping Aiba’s email to instead threaten to drown Jun in the pool. Aiba had talked him down from threatening murder, merely changing his original email from kicking Jun’s “butt” to kicking his “ass,” which Aiba found to be a more satisfactory taunt.

Jun had of course responded in kind to every single email with increasingly angry pictures that he’d copied and pasted from a Google Image Search. In one of them, there’d been a man on a bike that was on fire and later in the week Jun had sent along a picture of American swimmer Michael Phelps. Jun had simply captioned the swimmer and all his medals as “What you’re up against!!!!”

After declaring war on Jun during the holiday brownie contest, Aiba knew he had to step up his game. Unfortunately for Aiba, who preferred to avoid drama and to always play fairly, Nino had explained that Aiba had to break the rules. He’d been nervous all week, doing laps in the pool in between his clandestine meetings with Ohno in Roppongi Hills. Even Ohno thought that Aiba would have to cheat a bit just to make progress with Jun. He really needed to stop surrounding himself with these rule-bending type of friends.

Nino had initially suggested that they put itching powder in Jun’s wetsuit. Aiba had refused. Then Ohno had suggested that Aiba have some of the air in Jun’s bike tires let out so he’d have a flat by the end of the race. Aiba had been against that bit of cheating as well. Instead he had asked Nino to simply slow Jun down. When Jun changed from his wetsuit to his cycling clothes, Nino would ensure that Jun’s custom-ordered, sweat-wicking biking socks were misplaced. And then when Jun went past the supporters holding out cups of water, Nino was going to ensure that Jun would be handed a cup of incredibly bitter tea instead.

So nothing that was really going to hurt him. Just little things that might annoy him, and an annoyed Matsumoto Jun was not the type of Matsumoto Jun who was going to win the IJU triathlon. Aiba wasn’t aiming to win, but he was aiming to beat Jun’s time and then, much as he wasn’t looking forward to it, he was going to rub it in Jun’s face.

Because of the number of participants, the contest was run in waves, with the first batch of swimmers going first and then starting the cycling race on the track before the second batch. Aiba was in the second batch, and thanks to his friend Kazama in IT who helped organize the competition every year, Aiba had ensured that Matsumoto Jun was placed in the same group.

As the first wave of contestants dove into the pool, the cheers of IJU staff and officers echoing throughout the natatorium, Matsumoto came strolling over in his wonderfully tight wetsuit. It showed off his body quite nicely, his broad chest and shoulders, his narrow waist and long legs. Aiba had to remind himself that his goal was to defeat Jun today, not ogle him like a piece of meat. Nino made a quick exit, undoubtedly off to sneak around the locker room in hopes of hiding Jun’s stupid socks. After all, in an agency full of super spies nobody would expect the gadget guy to be up to no good.

“Aiba-san.”

“Matsumoto-san,” Aiba said in his meanest voice, although Ohno always said that his mean voice was about as scary as the easily defeated villain of the week on a kids’ tokusatsu program.

“Prepare to be destroyed.”

Aiba held in a giggle, doing his best to keep a straight face. “Maybe I should do the triathlon with one arm tied behind my back, just to keep things fair.”

He saw Jun’s nostrils flare in anger, but there was no time for him to offer a rebuttal because Vice-Director Sakamoto was announcing that it was time for the contestants in the second wave to make their way over to the pool. Aiba had been placed a few spots down the line from Jun, and he watched the participants in the first group finish their swims, IJU employees slowly poking up out of the water and hoisting themselves up. As they hurried for the locker room, Aiba looked over and saw that Nino had already emerged. Aiba watched him toss a balled up pair of socks, presumably Jun’s, into the garbage can next to the locker room door, smoothly moving aside as the triathletes hurried to change.

Soon enough it was Aiba’s turn and back and forth he went, up and down the length of the pool, aiming for speed but not pressing himself too hard. The cycling was going to be tiring enough and he needed to keep most of his stamina for the final running portion. Jun was already out of the pool when Aiba emerged, but he made up the time upon getting into the locker room.

He was on the other side, could hear Jun punching lockers angrily. “Which one of you jerks took my socks? Where’s Aiba? Aiba-san, what did you do with my socks?”

One of the other contestants on the same side of the lockers as Aiba looked like he wanted to say something, but Aiba only put his finger to his lips and pretended to ssh him. The other guy, confused, simply went back to changing his clothes. Stripped out of his wetsuit and into his biking shirt and shorts, he jogged around and saw Jun trying to pull on his own shorts, having apparently given in and wearing the regular socks he’d been planning to wear for the run. It wasn’t like Aiba expected him to get a bunch of blisters by having bare feet inside his biking shoes. He wasn’t that mean (though Nino made fun of him for it).

He got to his bike quickly, and it was rather cold outside. As some of the cyclists came around, he could see how chilled they were. But Aiba had done this before and he started pedaling, knowing that his body would warm up by the third or fourth time he came around the track. After the first few turns, pedaling hard to make better time, he’d been a gear higher than usual. But when he tried to shift down to an easier gear, it jammed.

Grumbling, he kept trying to twist the thing, toddling a little as he rounded a curve. Moments later Matsumoto Jun in his not-really-meant-for-biking socks came flying around the corner. “You suck!” Jun’s voice howled into the chilly winter air, and Aiba knew that he’d been sabotaged. He’d have to finish the entire race in a higher gear. His legs were not going to be pleased when it came time for the foot race, and he had the conniving Matsumoto Jun to thank. He could already hear Nino’s voice in his head. “Should have dumped his bike shorts in the trash, not his damn socks!” Nino was blabbing.

Despite the broken gear, Aiba finished the cycling portion two and a half minutes behind Jun - a large gap for some, but not a large gap for Aiba Masaki, the IJU’s King of Speed. In the changing room, he quickly exchanged his biking shorts for running shorts, lacing up his lightweight running shoes. Once he entered the gym, taking a cup of water from Nino’s outstretched hand, he received a curt nod. Jun had definitely been given the bitter tea.

Tired as he was from the first two stages, and knowing he was probably going to be cramping the rest of the week if not longer, Aiba quickly worked his way up to his full speed. He came around the curve of the running track a few minutes later, seeing that Jun was running with a sour look on his face, having been offered a rather nasty refreshment.

“You suck!” Aiba hollered childishly as he passed Jun and never let him get ahead of him again.

When he got to the finish line, he could see that he wasn’t the first to arrive, and Jun came jogging up only twenty-five seconds after him, huffing and puffing since he’d clearly overexerted himself to try and catch Aiba and his long, speedy legs. Before anyone could congratulate Jun on a race well run, he went over to the bleachers and just laid down, grumbling to himself.

Aiba, calf muscles and thigh muscles and every other set of muscles throbbing, settled for the arrival of Nino and his tender loving care, which just consisted of him shoving a huge bottle of water into Aiba’s hand and commanding him to drink.

“He broke my bike,” Aiba wheezed, nearly bent in half as he tried to catch his breath.

“Told you to drown him,” Nino complained, looking over in Matsumoto’s direction. He was already surrounded by his adoring fans, all the younger junior officers that he trained. Two of them were fanning him while another was standing guard, presumably so Jun (with his tired legs in his short jogging shorts spread wide) wouldn’t accidentally show anyone his balls.

“I really don’t think I need to do anything else. I already beat him,” Aiba pointed out, having a nice long sip of water, grateful it wasn’t bitter tea.

“He cheated as much as you did. More, in fact,” Nino said. “Now get over there and tell him a grandma with two hip replacements could have beaten him. Go!”

To punctuate his insistence, Nino gave him a rather rough shove. The water bottle nearly toppled from his hand and he held on tight, somehow managing to make his rubbery legs move. Upon approaching, Jun’s legion of loving kohai gave Aiba uncertain looks. Because, after all, Aiba had never been mean to them before but at the same time, he repeatedly kicked Jun’s ass. Would their loyalty win out?

“Leave me alone,” Jun said wearily, and Aiba wasn’t too sure if it was directed at him or his fanboys.

Gathering his courage, he tried to channel his best inner Nino. The fanning kohai scattered, allowing Aiba to peer over the bleacher and down to Jun, who was lying on his back staring up at the ceiling in disbelief.

“Hmm, amazing how poorly you performed given your…advantages.” Aiba crossed his arms, trying to look haughty. “You could say that you were ‘geared up’ for a total victory and still pissed it all away.”

Jun covered his face, groaning.

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

Jun didn’t move his hand away, but his voice was clearer when he spoke again. “Those socks cost 69,000 yen.”

“Are you serious?”

Jun’s voice was a bit pathetic, though Aiba was amazed he could talk at all given how tired he seemed. “They were custom molded to my feet. And the final stitching is done by these little old ladies in Austria. They only make like, twenty-five pairs a year, and mostly for…” Jun moved his hand away from his face, rubbing at an obvious sore spot on his calf. “Mostly for Tour de France participants.”

Aiba kind of wanted to run back down to the pool and grab Jun’s stupid expensive socks out of the garbage and hand them over with an apology, but he knew that would be caving in. And Nino would never let him live it down. “Sucks to be you then!” he said quickly, hurrying away before Jun could say anything else.

He tugged Nino by his sleeve, yanking him down the track and out of earshot. “Nino,” Aiba said as soon as he knew Jun couldn’t hear him, “we have to make sure those socks turn up in the lost and found.” Aiba’s ability to be cruel still needed work, but he was fine with that.

When Aiba told Nino how much they cost, Nino’s astonished laughter echoed throughout IJU headquarters.


	5. The One Where Aiba Handles Ohno

When it came to deep cover, the IJU’s willingness to provide its agents with decent accommodations or safe houses definitely came down to how much they liked you. Ohno Satoshi, who had the overly ambitious and terribly dangerous task of taking out IJU’s mortal enemy EVIL Inc., Aiba thought IJU would put him up in a penthouse somewhere. After all, lower level agents like Aiba were just happy when they were put up at hotels overseas for missions and were allowed to take snacks from the minibar.

For his mission, for his undercover persona, Ohno was staying in a loft-style apartment not far from EVIL Inc.’s main headquarters in Kabukicho. But since he was out pretty much all the time, doing whatever it was that art thieves did during the day, he didn’t get to enjoy it. And with how hard he was working, Aiba had thought that Ohno’s safe house, the safe place where they could meet unobserved, would be a bit fancier.

Sure it was near fancy Roppongi Hills, but the IJU had decided that Ohno and Aiba would have their weekly handler-and-asset meetings in a rather depressing little studio apartment. He and Ohno each had a key for the place, and the only furniture inside was a mattress and a hot plate. Ohno sometimes used them if Aiba got held up at work and they couldn’t meet right on time. The mattress didn’t even have sheets. It was just sad all around.

It was a normal Thursday evening. It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since Aiba had received the call from “Unknown Caller” that simply played Gary Grouper’s song. He and Ohno had been meeting like clockwork every Thursday evening for almost two months now. And even though they’d done good work together, they’d definitely been using the safe house for more than just work.

So long as Ohno conveyed all the information he needed Aiba to know for that week, everything he needed for his meetings with the IJU higher ups, they figured it was okay to hook up. It was a pretty pathetic hook-up spot, making out on that sheet-deficient mattress or getting a hasty “see ya next week!” handjob in the genkan, but after so many years apart, Aiba would do just about anything if it meant seeing the adorable, satisfied look Ohno got on his face after getting off.

Neither one of them had ever been too into roleplaying. They were spies, so the appeal of being someone else (when their jobs asked that of them all the time) was pretty low. In the safe house he could just be Aiba Masaki and Ohno could just be Ohno Satoshi instead of the guy who’d been in deep cover missions for the last three years of his life.

So that Thursday night, like all their previous Thursday nights, Aiba went to the depressing little studio apartment and turned his key in the lock. Ohno was already there, lying on the mattress and waving as soon as he came in. Before Aiba had even finished unlacing his shoes, Ohno was talking. Not even a greeting, not even a “hey Aiba-chan” as usual. Instead Ohno had an immediate request.

“I need you to roleplay with me.”

“Huh?” Aiba asked, shrugging out of his winter coat and hanging it up. “Hi to you too, Oh-chan.”

Ohno rolled over onto his belly, watching Aiba with an irritated look in his eyes. “You know how I told you last week that I was really close to turning someone?”

“Yeah, of course,” he replied. Director Kimura was especially excited that Ohno was doing so well sneaking around at EVIL Inc. The pressure was on for him to get higher ups to change sides, to start thwarting their own organization from the inside.

“Well, um, there’s something I haven’t mentioned about this person.”

Aiba fumbled in his back pocket for his phone so he could record (and later erase) their conversation. “Hold on, let me get this on.”

Ohno got to his feet, hurrying across the room to him and putting his hand over Aiba’s before he could get the phone to record. “The woman I’m prepared to turn full-fledged double agent, well, there’s something she wants from me, and I know if I give it to her, she’ll play for any side I want.”

Aiba raised an eyebrow. “She wants something? Oh-chan, it’s me, you can say the word ‘sex’ in front of me.”

“It’s…a little more complicated,” Ohno said, gesturing to the plastic shopping bag that he’d apparently brought in with him. Aiba wandered over and peered inside, cracking up when he saw some thin rope, candles, and a lighter.

“Uhhh, complicated how?” Aiba asked, worried that Ohno had gotten in over his head at EVIL Inc. He was usually really careful about who he selected as his potential turncoats.

“Complicated as in, um…” Ohno’s round face was flushed in a way that always made Aiba like him all the more. “Um, her name is Mistress Pain so…”

“Her name is _what_?”

“It’s a nickname, I’m sorry. I know that’s hard to bring back to the bosses and stuff, but yeah, she calls herself Mistress Pain and she owns a bunch of brothels in Yokohama. I may have agreed to become her submissive.” Ohno looked away in embarrassment. “And by ‘may have agreed’ I mean ‘totally agreed.’”

“Submissive as in…like, _submissive_?”

“Yeah. If you couldn’t tell from her name, she’s a dominatrix. In EVIL Inc. she’s responsible for providing prostitutes for organization leadership. She knows them all and she’ll probably turn on them, but she kind of uh, claimed my ass first.”

Aiba took the opportunity to move around, checking on Ohno’s butt in his jeans. It didn’t look particularly claimed, but it was still nice and round as ever, and Aiba was having a difficult time handling the thought of that cute little rear getting smacked around by a woman known as Mistress Pain.

“So um,” Ohno said nervously, scratching his scalp. “I don’t know too much about that stuff so I thought you could help. I downloaded an e-book of that Fifty Shades of something, but it wasn’t very good…”

“Help?” Aiba squeaked. “Help how?”

“Well, you stand in for Mistress Pain, just so I can get used to the idea of being completely and utterly…you know, dominated.”

Aiba’s eyes widened. He’d long known that Ohno had a pretty high threshold for pain. He’d been pummeled by bad guys on missions, on account of most thugs being twice his size. But as far as bedroom activities went, at least the ones he’d shared with Aiba, his preferences usually seemed quite ordinary. “So what do I have to do to you?”

Ohno pulled his phone from his pocket. “She’s given me a schedule of what she’d like to do to me, over time and safely, but so I can have reasonable expectations, I thought maybe you could do some of these things to me first.”

He eyeballed the list quickly, feeling nervous. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, that’s sort of the point,” Ohno said. “I mean…it’s all about deriving pleasure from the pain. But at the same time, it’s not just her smacking me around. It’s about control, ordering me around, you know. She’s not going to do anything I don’t agree to upfront, she’s not a malicious person.” She works for EVIL Inc., Aiba wanted to remind him, but let it slide. “It’s about being safe when you do it so both people enjoy it. It comes down to trust, and though I don’t know everything about Mistress Pain, I do know almost everything about you. I trust that you wouldn’t do anything bad to me.”

This was probably a job that Matsumoto Jun would be much better at. If he could break the gear on a rival’s bike, he’d probably have no problem treating a human being like his pet. Aiba had a difficult time hurting anyone or anything, with his deeds or his words. If he trapped a spider in his apartment, he usually hurried to toss it outside instead of smushing it. Matsumoto Jun, with all the seduction experience he had as part of his pretty boy spy life, BDSM behaviors were probably a walk in the park for him. As for Aiba, he could sometimes imagine things too easily, feel things too deeply. The thought of Ohno being in pain of any sort, especially inflicted by his own hand, it was a lot to worry about.

“There’s really nobody else in all of EVIL Inc. you could turn from the dark side?”

Ohno shook his head. “She’s my best shot.”

Aiba took a deep breath. In this instance, work - and the IJU’s mission - had to come first. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll do my best.”

-

“Well how much candle wax is too much candle wax?”

“I’m not really sure…” Ohno mumbled, skimming through some how-to guides on his phone.

This week, Ohno had brought along multiple types of candles, as the idea of wax play had kind of scared him off last week. So far they’d mostly worked on Aiba giving commands and Ohno following them. After nearly three hours of it, Aiba had been emotionally exhausted, collapsing on the mattress with Ohno and ordering him to simply cuddle with him. That had been kind of nice.

But Aiba was fairly certain they’d mastered the give orders/obey orders thing. At the very least, Ohno didn’t make disagreeable faces now when he was ordered to kiss Aiba’s foot or bark like a dog or finger himself in front of a mirror. The last one had actually been kind of hot to watch.

They were attempting to try something new, especially since Mistress Pain was getting a bit impatient. She’d made Ohno walk around her apartment on all fours and had even forced him to pee outside (thankfully she’d let him stand up and pee against a wall). But she wanted to do more to him, and he wanted to have a decent sense of it. Her apartment was full of candles, so he expected that was the next sort of play she’d introduce.

Aiba dug through the bag, skipping some of the little tea lights Ohno had brought. Too small. He pulled out a thick blue cylindrical candle with three wicks. This sucker wouldn’t be a slouch when it came to wax. “How about this?”

Ohno shrugged.

“You have to be one hundred percent committed, you know.”

“If it’s you, I’m a thousand percent committed.” Ohno grinned. “You’re like the nicest dominant ever, Aiba-chan.”

He smiled in return. “Yeah, probably. Anyhow, let’s get you blindfolded and I’ll try it on me first.”

-

The following week, Aiba was still missing a small patch of hair on his forearm from a rather stupid wax testing error, but Ohno remained uninjured and was in fine spirits. He’d gotten really into it, to the point of admitting to Aiba that he’d practically begged Mistress Pain to do it to him a few days after their own practice session.

But it seemed like his mistress preferred cold temperatures to hot ones and was heavily hinting at an interest in ice. Aiba pulled the tray of ice cubes out of the freezer, giggling a little. Ohno had bought a tray with dick shapes, and Aiba hoped he wouldn’t kill the mood by laughing.

He cracked a dick “cube” out of the tray and made his way over to the mattress. There were still colorful blue wax stains from their previous experience dotting the mattress, and he wondered what IJU management would think whenever Ohno was no longer assigned usage of the safe house.

Speaking of Ohno, he was currently in one of Aiba’s favorite positions - on his back, arms up behind his head with his wrists tied, completely naked. Aiba, fully clothed, grinned when he knelt down on the mattress at Ohno’s side, seeing his cock twitch eagerly at his arrival. “I should blindfold you,” Aiba said.

Ohno wiggled a little. “I’m already tied up. I’m not going to run.”

Aiba, dick cube in hand, hoped he was showing no reaction to the cold. These evenings with Ohno he was discovering a lot of what he was capable of. He held the ice up over Ohno’s abdomen, seeing his eyes focus on it.

“Do I wait until it starts dripping on you or do I just go for it?” Aiba wondered aloud.

Ohno licked his lips. “You’re in charge, Aiba-chan.”

If anything, Ohno was in charge. Everything was with his consent, with his knowledge of how far it could go, and his ability to stop it at any time. Despite their previous sessions, the both of them complete newbies, Ohno hadn’t found it necessary to use their safeword (porcupine) once. 

Aiba got serious, clearing his throat and getting to work. He teased Ohno for a while, bringing the ice “cube” within an inch of his skin, the occasional droplet making him shudder. Aiba’s fingers were freezing cold, but he powered through. Before it could melt all the way, he brought the cube to one of Ohno’s nipples, enjoying the pleased little moan he let out as Aiba rubbed it against his sensitive skin. The nipple hardened, and Aiba loved seeing goosebumps prickling on Ohno’s arms, his chest.

He rubbed a bit, then moved the cube quickly so a few more droplets fell to pool in Ohno’s navel, to slide down his side where he was a bit ticklish. It had long ago lost its dick shape, so when he returned to the kitchen for another, he bit his lip to keep from laughing at it. Ohno was even more responsive this time, jerking with each bit of contact as Aiba teased the ice up and down his chest. Aiba was really tempted to put one of the dick cubes in his mouth, to suck on Ohno’s increasingly hard cock with it, but he supposed that wouldn’t quite be in line with what they were trying to practice.

He went through six more of the “cubes,” taking his time even as his fingers numbed and he switched to his other hand. Ohno wriggled and sighed impatiently, completely exposed as Aiba teased across his belly, down his neck and beneath his armpits, along the tender insides of his thighs. Ohno arched up any time Aiba was reaching across his body, coming into contact with him, his erection thudding against him helplessly. Ohno didn’t bother to control his language. Aiba was fairly certain the phrase “please, I need you to fuck me, Aiba-chan” had never been said so often or so noisily.

He had an idea when he got back to the freezer. “If you want to be fucked, you have to do what I say.”

Ohno looked over, breathing heavily. The breaks between the ice had him nearly as excited, waiting so eagerly for more. “Anything.”

Aiba broke three dick cubes from the tray and brought them over. He stood over the mattress in a commanding stance. “If you keep these between your thighs until they melt, then I’ll give it to you.” With the freezing cubes in one hand, he cupped his clothed crotch with the other. “This is what you need, isn’t it?”

Ohno looked like he was suppressing a smile, but he simply nodded.

He knelt down on the mattress once more, spreading Ohno’s thighs apart. “Let’s see how good you are, Oh-chan.”

-

Aiba had always considered himself a guy with simple needs. He didn’t need to be tied up, held down, burned, frozen, any of that stuff. Some people were into that and more power to them. But now that he’d discovered how much Ohno liked to be gagged during sex, he decided that not-so-simple had its appeal too.

He couldn’t exactly compete with Mistress Pain’s strap-on, but Ohno seemed to have few complaints that evening. Unlike most of their ‘preparation’ sessions where Aiba had Ohno blindfolded or restrained in some fashion, with the ball gag in his mouth he couldn’t speak. He had full use of his hands to remove the gag if needed, and as a back-up, he was holding the keys to the safe house in his hand that he could jingle to immediately stop what was going on.

Aiba was usually used to his partners saying…well, just about anything, but with Ohno’s small mouth stretched wide and drool dripping down his face and sliding down his neck, he couldn’t do much more than moan. Aiba had taken it slow, slower than Ohno probably wanted, fucking him so slowly with his lubed-up fingers that Ohno finally reached across the mattress to grab the box of condoms and fling them at his face.

He supposed it wasn’t typical submissive behavior, but Ohno obviously saved that for Mistress Pain. 

Now he had Ohno on his back, his ankles resting on his shoulders. He’d always been a flexible guy. Aiba set his hands on the mattress, beside Ohno’s shoulders. There was an astonishing intimacy to it, seeing the trust in Ohno’s eyes mingled with pleasure each time Aiba pushed back inside him, their bodies rocking against each other. 

“Mistress usually talks a lot, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Ohno had said before letting Aiba help him with the gag. He was happy to stay silent, barely able to keep from smiling as he quickened the pace, seeing Ohno nod with each stroke. He wanted to wipe Ohno’s face, worried he was going to choke on his own spittle, but Ohno was remarkably enthusiastic about the process, making more noise than usual as he moaned around the gag.

Before too long, Ohno had his hands around Aiba’s arms, squeezing tight as if to encourage him to go all out. Fuck me hard, his eyes were saying. Go on, do it. Though Ohno’s heavy, labored breathing still had him worried, he gradually gave in, leaning forward and pushing until Ohno’s knees were almost even with his shoulders. These last few weeks, these moments with Ohno after so many years apart, he cherished them. Though they’d been on and off for years in the past, he’d never felt closer to him than he had lately. Knowing how much Ohno trusted him, how much Ohno relied on him to help, it was almost as much of a turn-on for Aiba as the look on Ohno’s face when he got off.

The sad little mattress was almost starting to scoot across the floor as Aiba pushed himself harder, deeper, sweat dripping down his face to join the saliva pooling on Ohno’s chin. He shut his eyes, hearing the encouraging, desperate sounds Ohno was trying to make. Soon enough, he was coming, burying his face against Ohno’s neck, barely able to breathe.

He eased up, giving Ohno’s legs a break and gently easing himself out of him. With shaky fingers, he helped Ohno to pull the gag from his mouth, loosening the straps that kept it on. Then he cleaned up, dumping his condom in the trash and hurrying back with some clean washcloths. Ohno was still on his back, staring up at the ceiling with as close to stars in his eyes as Aiba had ever seen.

Aiba took charge, cleaning them both. “Jaw hurts,” Ohno complained lightly, pressing a kiss to Aiba’s brow once they were considerably less gross.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s worth it,” Ohno said. And then a few minutes later, as Aiba was about to drift off, Ohno spoke again. “Ah, probably getting a leg cramp too…”

Aiba laughed, nudging him. “You wanted to keep going.”

“I did,” Ohno admitted, curling up at his side. Despite how tender his mouth had to be, he offered Aiba a long, sweet kiss. “I should probably tell you something.”

“Please don’t say you want me to pee on you, Oh-chan. I have limits…”

“No,” Ohno said, laughing. “But uh, I managed to convince my mistress to change sides.”

“What? Really? When?”

Ohno squeezed Aiba’s hand. “Uh, last week…”

“So this…” Aiba blushed. “Wait, you said she wanted to do this to you.”

“Uh, fucking me in the ass with her strap-on, yes. While I’m gagged, not necessarily.”

Aiba looked over, seeing Ohno’s wry smile. “Kinky, aren’t you?”

“This mission has opened my eyes to a whole new world.”

Aiba squeezed Ohno’s hand. “Talk about professional development!”

“Taking down EVIL Inc, drooling all over myself,” Ohno said with a yawn, snuggling closer. “All in a day’s work!”


	6. The One Where Jun Gets The Upper Hand (Or Does He?)

Matsumoto Jun had spent the last month and a half on the steppes of Mongolia, traveling with yak herders as well as the company of a senior agent. Senior Operations Officer Okada Junichi was well known as one of the IJU’s “top all-around badasses” and he’d selected Jun to travel to Mongolia with him. There they had infiltrated the herder group to search for an EVIL Inc. operative who had defected and fled. It was thanks to Ohno that they’d had the man’s name at all.

Successful in their Mongolian mission, Agent Okada was throwing an all expenses paid party at a bar not too far from headquarters that night. While IJU’s best and brightest interrogators were working over the ex-EVIL Inc. fellow for information, Okada was encouraging all his juniors to help themselves to whatever they wanted, even the top shelf liquor.

Aiba had happily done so, and was nursing his fourth rum and Coke of the evening. He managed to corner Matsumoto in a booth to the rear of the bar. “Ah, here you are, Mr. Yak Herder!”

Jun, who usually scowled at him with considerable zeal, instead smiled at him. “Hey you, get over here.”

Aiba, a bit confused but tipsy enough not to be scared off, slid into the booth beside him. He was drunk enough to sit so close that their hips were just about touching, and Jun was drunk enough to not move away. “Congratulations on your successful mission, as per usual. Hmm, you don’t smell like a yak. That’s good.”

Jun chuckled, and Aiba kind of liked seeing his light-hearted side. Jun needed to get drunk more often. “You know, we lived in a yurt! And I had yak milk and yak butter and yak meat. Also, yaks don’t smell that bad! They have a bad reputation!”

“Kind of like…how you think about me, huh?”

Jun, nursing some drink that reeked of vodka, smiled. “You don’t smell like a yak, Aiba.”

Aiba raised an eyebrow, amused by Jun’s extremely informal tone. “I meant the reputation part. You don’t like me very much.”

“Whaaaaaat?” Jun asked, shoving Aiba’s shoulder pretty damn hard. “Nawwwww, that’s…that’s just…you know.”

“Jun-kun,” Aiba said, pointing at him, “you sabotaged my bicycle in the triathlon.”

Jun waved his hand dismissively. “Can’t be proven, no witnesses.”

Aiba grinned. “Okay then.”

As other IJU staffers and officers went to the bar and back, he and Matsumoto nursed their drinks. Jun definitely didn’t smell like a yak, and despite his alcohol-palooza already in progress, he waved over one of the waitresses to get some shots. Aiba, almost done with his fourth liquor-filled drink, wasn’t too keen on moving in that direction, but Jun was being comparatively nice to him for the first time since they’d known each other, and he wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass him by. It was almost friendly, sitting at Jun’s side and not being in competition for once.

“Okay, let’s have a competition,” Jun decided as soon as the waitress returned with a tray full of shot glasses. Aiba rolled his eyes. He should have known. “This…these…this grouping of alcoholic delights, you and me. You ever see what’s it with Indiana Jones? His girlfriend with the shots and the drinking?”

“Raiders of the Lost Ark?”

“Yeah! She has the drinking…shots contest.” Jun hiccupped adorably, his big lovely face flushed from drink. “You and me, we’ll have the drinking shots contest. I’m going to be like Indiana’s girlfriend and win.”

“If you insist.”

They made it to three shots of tequila each before Jun was about to fall over, leaning against Aiba heavily.

“Oi,” Aiba slurred, liking how warm and cozy Jun felt at his side. “Oi, Indiana’s girlfriend.”

“Hmm?” Jun replied.

He gestured to the table. “More shots. You giving up?”

“No.”

Aiba nudged him with his shoulder. He really didn’t want to keep going anyhow. If Jun did another one, he’d back out and let him have this victory. He was probably one or two shots away from hugging the toilet and regurgitating all the fine liquor Agent Okada had paid for anyway. “Well then go on, drink it.”

“You.”

Jun’s head was lolling against Aiba’s shoulder now, and he chuckled. “No, you go first. I insist.”

“No way,” Jun protested.

“Coward.”

“Me? What about you? Why don’t you do it?” Jun elbowed him, harder than necessary. His voice was different when he spoke again. “I need to be better than you at something.”

“Huh?”

Jun moved a little and when Aiba looked over, there were tears in Jun’s eyes. “Aiba-san, I need to be better.”

Aiba had always been a sympathy cryer, and he could feel his own eyes welling up. “Being able to drink more than me proves nothing.”

“Proves my liver is better.”

“I don’t think that’s medically true.” He patted Jun’s shoulder. “Come on, Jun-kun, why do we have to be so antog…anti…antagon…antig…” He blinked a few times. “Why can’t we just be best friends?”

Jun looked even more forlorn. “Why would you want to be friends with someone not as good?”

“Hey, don’t say that. Don’t say that. Ninomiya-san is much better than me at building tech stuff, and we’re friends. I like to exercise and he prefers to sit around and eat potato chips, and we’re friends.” This time he wrapped his arm around Jun, was surprised that Jun leaned against him even more. “So me being able to run faster than you shouldn’t matter. I like you, Jun, why do we have to be so mean? I don’t think everything between us has to be such a competition.”

They both stared at the unfinished shots one more time.

“I look up to you,” Jun said, so quietly Aiba could barely hear him over the other noise in the bar. “I just want you to like me.”

Aiba was confused, the alcohol making him woozy. “Didn’t I just say I like you? Aren’t you listening to me?”

Time seemed to stop a bit when Jun looked up, fingers brushing against Aiba’s face. His eyes were so dark, Aiba could get lost in them. “I want you to _like_ me.”

“I do,” he repeated.

And he wasn’t sure who moved first, but then he was kissing Jun and Jun was kissing him. Tears were rolling down both of their faces, and Aiba wasn’t even sure what they were crying about anymore. Jun, who was intense in almost all things, was no slouch in the kissing department either. He had his hand on Aiba’s neck, had only been kissing him a few seconds before he was slipping his tongue into Aiba’s mouth. The bar, their colleagues, Aiba’s continued curiosity about what life in a yurt was like…it all meant nothing because finally, finally, finally after so many years of loathing, he and Jun had seemingly kissed and made up.

“…all these shots are just sitting here waiting for me and…”

Jun broke away from Aiba first, the two of them jumping at the sight of a nosy, noisy Nino stumbling into their table, Becky trying to corral him.

“Hey,” Becky said, not sounding as drunk as everyone else. “Hey Nino, let’s uh, let’s leave them be and…”

But Jun was already up, the moment was lost, and Aiba could only watch in drunken confusion as he stumbled his way to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Aiba leaned his elbows on the table, chin in his hands. “Such terrible timing, Ninomi.”

“Sorry.” Nino took one of the shot glasses and sniffed it before quickly returning it to the tray. “Ugh, even I have my limits.”

“What’s going on with you two? Another battle?” Becky asked.

Aiba could still taste Jun, savoring the memory of it. He doubted it would ever happen again, once Jun came to his senses. Kissing under the influence, that definitely didn’t count, did it?

“I wish I knew the answer.” He shut his eyes. “Also, since the bathroom is occupied, can someone get me outside so I can barf?”


	7. The One With Sho From Accounting

The accounting firm of Domoto and Domoto took up eight floors of a Shinjuku skyscraper, and it was far easier for Aiba to sneak in from the rooftop than it was from the ground. He’d entered the building next door during business hours, posing as a salaryman, and had spent most of the evening waiting for total darkness (which was a relative thing in Tokyo, but at least it was after midnight now).

He’d shot a grappling hook over to the roof next door, carefully making his way across and trying not to look down, since it was a good forty stories down to a splattering death. In his slinky black shirt and slacks with matching black ski mask, he jimmied open the lock and entered the stairwell from the roof. EVIL Inc. guards worked the building’s entrance, but some of Ohno’s recon work had revealed that the stairwells went mostly unmonitored. If all went as planned, the door to the thirty-third floor would be unlocked.

Happily, it was.

Taking note of camera placement, he snuck through the thirty-third floor’s rows of cubicles and work stations, finding the office at the end of the floor, the only one that still had its lights on. Observing from behind a cubicle wall, he saw the man inside, Ohno’s contact, someone else in the organization that he’d managed to turn. What Oh-chan hadn’t seemed to think was worth telling Aiba, however, was how ridiculously cute said contact was.

In a business suit, his red tie loosened, Aiba watched accountant Sakurai Sho twirl a pencil in his fingers. For years, Domoto and Domoto had cooked the books for EVIL Inc., but Ohno had managed to convince Sakurai that it was time to stop working for the bad guys. The guy hadn’t known about EVIL Inc. when he’d joined Domoto and Domoto, and he’d probably been blackmailed all these years not to tell anyone about their criminal activity. Aiba sort of felt bad for the guy, and Ohno had too. After weeks of convincing and cajoling, Sakurai was ready to come clean.

Ohno just hadn’t told him that Aiba was coming to make him prove it that night.

He watched Sakurai, an all-around diligent employee, tap the pencil’s eraser against his sexy, plump lips a few times before going on the offensive. Knowing there was no camera pointed directly at Sakurai’s office, he hurried from the cubicle and was inside Sakurai’s office, shutting and locking the door in ten seconds flat.

Sakurai, clearly tired from a long work day, reacted with a surprised shout, holding up his hands when Aiba pointed his tranquilizer gun at him. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”

Aiba kept the weapon on him anyway, pulling off his ski mask and shoving it in the pocket of his slacks. “Relax, Sakurai-san. I’m friends with Naruse-san.” Naruse being Ohno’s false name and part of his cover identity.

Sakurai trembled a little. “He didn’t say anything about this.”

“Yeah because tomorrow when they find you here in the office, you’ll say I surprised you and you won’t be lying.” Aiba gestured for Sakurai to get up, pointing to his filing cabinets. “I’m taking evidence with me that Domoto and Domoto is working for EVIL…I mean, that Domoto and Domoto works for the Shimmering Lotus Clan.”

Sakurai shook his head, but got to his feet and walked over anyhow. “If I give this to you, they’ll know I’m a snitch. They’ll have me killed.”

“They won’t, I promise. I’ll leave you here to be found in the morning, and by noon, my people will have the accounts analyzed and we’ll have you extracted. Brought to a safe house. Naruse-san’s got it all under control. He won’t let you get hurt.”

Aiba was a bit surprised when Sakurai blushed. He was super cute, and it was hard not to smile at him. “Will I get to see Naruse-san again?”

He finally lowered the tranq gun. “Wait a minute…” This whole op had been Ohno’s plan. Ohno had suggested it was best that Aiba tie up Sakurai and leave him bound and gagged to be found come morning. “Are you and Naruse-san…?”

Sakurai nodded, blushing even harder.

Aiba chuckled. “Oh boy.” Damn it, Oh-chan, he thought. As if Mistress Pain wasn’t enough. Civilians too! He’d always had trouble keeping it in his pants. “Yeah, you’ll see him again, I’m fairly certain.”

Sakurai pulled some papers from his cabinets and then took the flash drive Aiba provided him, showing him exactly what files he was transferring over. Everything was definitely going to help the IJU freeze EVIL Inc.’s bank accounts, at least the ones within Japan, and Sakurai had given him proof of other accounts in Switzerland and Russia.

“This is all very helpful, thank you,” Aiba said once he’d pocketed the flash drive, shoving the papers down his pants. Sakurai watched him do so, and Aiba couldn’t help but notice him licking his lips as he did so.

He had a small pouch tied around his middle, unzipping it to tug out the thin rope he was going to use to tie Sakurai to his chair. Sakurai seemed even more interested in this development. Suddenly, Aiba had a theory.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Sakurai-san, where did you meet Naruse-san?”

“I’d…I’d rather not say…”

Aiba took the rope between his hands, tugging it taut and seeing Sakurai let out a pleasurable shudder. 

“Do you let Naruse-san tie you up, Sakurai-san?”

Sakurai nodded.

“Did Naruse-san tie you up with the help of a rather…interesting woman?”

Sakurai nodded.

Aiba chuckled. “So basically the fact that I’m going to tie you up and leave you here to be found in the morning, part of you kind of likes the idea?”

Sakurai nodded.

Wow, Ohno sure knew how to pick people. He gave Sakurai a push, knocking him back into his chair. “So is there a high probability I’m going to leave you here and you’ll come in your pants? That’s a really nice suit.”

Sakurai nodded, and Aiba could see that his breathing was growing heavier. Oh, the secret life of the EVIL Inc. accountant.

“Would it help if I got you off before I left you? I mean, it’ll be embarrassing enough when they find you and you don’t need to be found covered in dried come, am I right?’’

This time Sakurai didn’t nod. Aiba leaned forward, whispering in Sakurai’s ear. 

“I’ve tied up Naruse-san before. I think he’d be happy to know I took good care of you.”

Sakurai’s voice was deep, but full of nervous tension. “He said he had a friend who was good at…um, this sort of business. I thought he’d been talking about his girlfriend, the lady with the riding crop.”

Aiba grinned. He wasn’t actually that good at it, but a straight-laced accountant who worked past midnight on a regular basis probably wouldn’t know the difference. Whatever Aiba’s limitations were when it came to bondage, he could certainly make up for it with his mouth and his tongue.

“Do you need to pee first? As far as Naruse-san’s told me, nobody’s going to come by until after 6:00, and after all your help, I’d hate to leave you without giving you the opportunity.”

He walked Sakurai to the bathroom carefully, making the man crawl on all fours in front of him so they wouldn’t be detected by the cameras. The guy had a great ass, which told Aiba all he needed to know. Ohno liked them nice and perky like that. And Ohno was always a good sport about sharing. He wondered if Ohno had set this whole thing up as a thank you for Aiba’s help with the mission. A generous man, Ohno Satoshi.

He finally got Sakurai back to his office, and even though he probably should have made it quick to secure his exit, he found it impossible to speed through it. As he secured Sakurai’s ankles, lashed his wrists to the chair, he could see his interest grow. He made sure to linger as he tied, dragging his fingertips across Sakurai’s skin, enjoying the little mmm’s and ohhh’s of pleasure he was making. 

Aiba got to his feet, Sakurai completely secured in the chair. He stood between Sakurai’s spread legs, stroking a finger across his lips. “Do you want the whole tie stuffed in your mouth or tied around you?”

Sakurai had given up entirely on his fear, his black hair falling messily across his brow and his pupils huge and dark. “Do whatever you want to me.”

Aiba didn’t need to be told twice. He tugged on Sakurai’s tie roughly, seeing him smile. He then took the tie in his hand and turned the wheeled office chair around. He settled his hands on Sakurai’s shoulders, patting hard. “You know, if I didn’t have to get all this information back to headquarters, I bet we’d have a lot of fun together.”

Sakurai chuckled quietly. “I think so too.”

“Oh well, duty calls. Let’s get you gagged then.” He got the tie in Sakurai’s mouth, securing it with a double knot behind his head, making sure he was as comfortable as he was going to get before turning the chair back around. “Ready?”

Sakurai nodded.

Aiba knelt down before him, unzipping Sakurai’s slacks, thoroughly unsurprised to see how hard and wanting he already was. He stroked his erection a few times, seeing his eyes flutter closed, his whines of pleasure kind of noisy even with the tie in his mouth.

“Come on, Sakurai-san,” Aiba teased him. “At least try and pretend there’s some danger involved, a mysterious stranger jacking you off in your office. Security guards who might come by at any minute.”

Sakurai moaned again, but quieter, and Aiba laughed. With the clock ticking, he made sure Sakurai Sho knew just how much his help was appreciated, licking eagerly from the base of his shaft to the head, swirling his tongue. Encouraged by Sakurai’s noisy approval, the way he struggled against his bonds, Aiba took his cock in his mouth, bobbing his head in time with his hand. If they had more time and if Aiba had thought to bring protection, he’d have found a way to tie Sakurai down and fuck him against his desk. That ass of his was just being wasted by having to stay seated. But he supposed that was a job he could leave for Ohno, once he was able to get Sakurai away from EVIL Inc.’s clutches and into a safe house. Aiba hoped that there’d be more than a mattress and a hot plate waiting for Sakurai Sho.

Sakurai’s hot little noises made Aiba speed up, and before too long, he heard Sakurai give in, warmth filling Aiba’s mouth. He took it all, not wanting to kill the mood by spitting into the sad little plant in the corner of Sakurai’s office. He got to his feet, wiping his mouth. Sakurai was drooling, his head resting a bit against his shoulder. Aiba patted his cheek, smiling.

“I could have kept going, but there’s a wire I have to shimmy across upstairs and it’s not the easiest thing to do.”

He grabbed some tissue, tidying up Sakurai’s softening cock and slipping it back in his slacks and zipping him up. He ruffled his hair in thanks, making sure he had everything he needed before sneaking back to the roof.

It was 4 AM when Aiba got the files back to headquarters. Vice-Director Sakamoto was there, patting Aiba on the shoulder. “It was a risky one, Aiba-san, thanks for all your help.”

Aiba shrugged, accepting the praise. “All in a day’s work, sir.”


	8. The One Where Nino Likes To Watch

He was the eighth person to get an eye infection from the 3.0 prototypes, and Nino sighed, handing over a vial of eye drops. “Sorry Aiba-shi. Are you really hurting?”

“Nah.” His eyes watering, his head aching a bit, Aiba accepted the drops. “It was a good idea, though.”

“I agree,” Nino said sadly, taking the contact lenses Aiba had dropped into the solution and bringing them back to his workstation. “I’ve got a new prototype set waiting to be tried, the 4.0s, but with eight failures with 3.0, I think it’s back to the drawing board.”

“I’ll try the new ones if you want,” Aiba volunteered.

Nino shook his head. “You can barely keep your eyes open, and I’ve gotta make my report tomorrow. I think the Eye-Spy lenses are not going to make it.”

“Sorry.”

For the last two years, Nino and his gadget team had been working on Eye-Spy, specially designed contact lenses that could record video and beam it back to a computer at IJU headquarters. Google Glass on steroids, Nino had called it when he’d received the initial funding for the program, but so far he hadn’t gotten it to work. Either the video component wouldn’t work or the officer wearing the lenses got an eye infection. There’d been worse failures, but Nino really hated when money he’d been given for product development was wasted.

Aiba spent the next week banned from the field, sitting in his cubicle with dark glasses on to deal with the sensitivity the lenses had given him. Funding for Eye-Spy was officially withdrawn, and Nino was incredibly depressed, sitting in the Supply Lab looking like someone had given his puppy away. Because of the need to recover from his eye infection, Aiba had relatively easy assignments, mostly consisting of paperwork and follow-up meetings with Ohno. Since he wasn’t going overseas and he wasn’t mission critical, he headed for the lab and decided that his friend needed cheering up. The type of cheering up only Aiba was willing to provide.

It was lunch hour, and the lab was cleared out. Nino was perched on his stool, looking forlorn as he worked on schematics for a new lockpicking mechanism. Nino’s underlings off at lunch, Aiba wrapped his arms around Nino and planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

“Oh no,” Nino mumbled sadly. “You’re horny.”

“Sure am.”

Nino leaned into his embrace, shutting his eyes. “I hired two temp guys for Eye-Spy and because the budget’s gone I had to let them go today. This sucks.”

“I know how to make you feel better.”

“I’m not interested.”

“It’s a really good idea.”

“Did you not hear me say that I just had to fire people? I’m not in a good mood right now.”

“But I know what puts you in a good mood.”

“Not gonna watch porn at work,” Nino said, elbowing Aiba.

“What if we make it ourselves?” Aiba said. Nino quieted down, obviously listening. “You still got the 4.0 prototypes?”

Nino swiveled around on his stool, his jaw dropping.

-

They had to wait until that evening, but by then, Aiba was away from his bright computer monitor and didn’t need to wear the dark glasses any longer. They were at Nino’s place, and he had the 4.0 Eye-Spy prototypes in hand, was sitting on Nino’s bed. Nino was in the living room with his laptop, getting the monitor set up to display whatever Aiba would be seeing once the prototype lenses were in his eyes.

“You might get another infection,” Nino called from the other room.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Aiba called back. 

If there was anything he knew about Nino, it was that he loved to watch other people fuck. He was a pornography connoisseur, loved amateur stuff that looked like it had been filmed haphazardly with an iPhone. Aiba usually had a hard time getting into stuff with a shaky camera. It gave him a headache, but Nino had a voyeurism streak a mile long, and Aiba wanted to satisfy it for him. And since the 4.0 lenses were the last set available, why not use them and have a good time?

He raised his voice. “Can I put them in now?”

“Go ahead. The feed should be perfectly synced up now.”

Aiba moved to the bathroom, washing his hands thoroughly before setting each contact lens on the tip of his index finger, gently putting one in each eye. He blinked a few times, adjusting. They were definitely more comfortable than the last ones Nino had told him to wear. Even though he was seeing normally, Nino let out a whoop of joy in the other room.

“They’re working?”

“Do something!”

All Aiba could see in the mirror was himself. He held up a hand and waved.

“Perfect! Perfect!”

“Let me test them further,” Aiba said, moving back into Nino’s bedroom.

“I’m recording.”

He made sure to look down as he undid the buckle on his belt, tossing it on the floor and unzipping his jeans. “Good?”

Nino’s voice through the door was a bit more subdued now. “Quite…good.”

Aiba stripped himself naked, lying back on Nino’s sheets. He started to stroke himself, enjoying the sensation and knowing that Nino was watching in the other-

“You’re looking at the fucking ceiling!”

“Oh!” Aiba said. “Sorry!”

Instead he sat up, leaning back against the headboard. It was a little odd to do so, but he looked down, keeping his eyes on his hand jerking himself off. He tried to do it slowly, working his cock up and down, pausing a few times so Nino could see his erection unobstructed.

“This is kinda weird.”

“Stop…stop talking and just…keep doing what you’re doing.”

He jerked himself a while longer, Nino interrupting every once in a while to yell at him for closing his eyes.

“It’s a reflex!” Aiba shot back. “If you want to have something better to look at, then get your ass in here already.”

Nino obliged, entering the bedroom with his laptop. He’d had a shower earlier and simply took off his bathrobe, naked and ready to go. Aiba was astonished by how hard Nino was, just from sitting in the other room watching the feed from Aiba’s contacts. 

“You better keep your eyes open for this.”

“I’ll do my best.”

It was just about the strangest thing he’d ever done, but he knew it was making Nino incredibly happy. Nino got set up, placing his laptop by the foot of the bed and getting on his hands and knees so he could watch his laptop screen at the same time. Basically, he was going to watch a live feed of himself as Aiba fucked him in the ass. Self-voyeurism? Maybe they needed a new name for it. Technology was really quite amazing, Aiba thought.

Aiba took his time getting Nino ready, listening to him sigh and moan as he slipped a finger into his ass. “Don’t…don’t look at the back of my head,” Nino complained. Aiba just laughed, stroking him, feeling him start to relax. Nino was making all sorts of noise by the time Aiba had three fingers inside him. He wondered what Nino liked the most - the feeling of Aiba’s fingers teasing his prostate or watching it all happen to him in real time. 

“Fuck me,” Nino was soon begging. “I want to watch you fuck me.”

Aiba went to the bathroom, washed his hands, and returned, taking his time rolling a condom onto his hard cock. Nino groaned, desperate to be fucked as Aiba teased him, dragging his cock back and forth across Nino’s ass, rubbing against his waiting hole.

“I need to watch it,” Nino was panting. “I need to watch you do it. Please, Masaki. Please.”

Aiba took hold of his cock with one hand and held on to Nino’s hip with the other. Even though he wanted nothing more than to push in hard and fuck Nino senseless, he knew it would please Nino all the more to go slow. Nino’s whole body was shaking, his arms trembling as he somehow managed to keep himself up on his hands. Aiba pushed the head of his cock inside, hearing Nino’s adorable little “fuck…yes” response encourage him. He moved back, pushing in further, knowing Nino could watch it and feel it happening simultaneously. As weird as it all was, Aiba hadn’t been turned on like this in a while.

He pushed in as far as he dared, filling Nino and hearing him moan. He stayed just like that, dragging his fingertips along Nino’s ass, moving them up to his back, stroking along his spine.

“Oh my god, this is really fucking cool,” Nino mumbled, experimenting a bit on his own by pushing back. Aiba moved both hands to Nino’s hips, pulling out a little. 

“I’m gonna move, can I move?”

“Yeah, you better.”

Holding on to Nino tight, he started to rock against him, Nino pushing back in time. It was probably going to hurt his neck if he looked down the whole time, but he did his best to give Nino a good show to watch, trying not to look away from the sight of his cock moving in and out of Nino’s ass again and again.

“Wow,” Nino was moaning. “Wow, keep going.”

He did as ordered, trying to keep a steady rhythm. A quick peek revealed that Nino had his small hands on each side of his laptop, holding onto it desperately so it didn’t get knocked off the bed as Aiba fucked him. Knowing the laptop was secure, Aiba briefly leaned forward, lightly biting Nino near his shoulder and feeling him shudder beneath him.

“Fuck me,” Nino begged. “This is so good.”

Keeping his eyes open, even as he was desperate to shut them and give in to the sensation, Aiba knew he wanted to try this again sometime. He wondered how long the prototype lenses were designed to last. Eventually he could tell that Nino was having a difficult time watching the monitor, his cries getting louder and more desperate. He saw Nino’s head drop, heard him almost growl, and now Aiba was watching it. Well, more like Nino’s head wasn’t in the way and Aiba could see himself watching the monitor, a strange visual if he’d ever seen one. 

Nino suddenly slammed the laptop shut, pushing it out of the way. “I have to come, oh god. Masaki, oh god.”

He slowed down and pulled out, pushing Nino over and onto his back. Nino was rock hard, dripping with pre-come and his eyes were glassy. Before Nino could say another word, Aiba was back inside him, a hand wrapped around Nino’s thigh and fucking into him with hard, punishing strokes. “Get off then,” Aiba told him. “Go ahead.”

Nino moaned, again and again, barely touching himself before he was coming onto his stomach. The sight of it, of Nino writhing through his seemingly incredible orgasm beneath him, brought Aiba quickly to the edge. He joined Nino in seconds, happy to be able to shut his eyes and just ride it out. He gently pulled himself out again and collapsed at Nino’s side, breathing heavily.

“Oh my god,” he mumbled, giggling.

“Oh my god, indeed,” Nino managed to reply, bursting into his own matching giggling fit.

“Is it still recording, you think? Even if it’s closed?”

“Probably.”

“Well,” Aiba said, exhausted and eyes closed. “Then you’ll just have to cut this part out because I’m about to pass out.”

Nino leaned over, kissing his sweaty shoulder. “You wanna watch it later?”

His brain was a little frazzled. “So wait…if it’s recording when we rewatch it, we’d be watching me watch us fuck while you were…watching me fuck you…I’m confused.”

“Stop thinking, Aiba-shi, if this is too much like Inception for you.”

He dropped a gentle kiss on Nino’s brow. “You should probably make some lenses for yourself too. Just saying.”

“The IJU has just created a porn revolution. If only we could tell Director Kimura.”

Aiba laughed so hard, shaking the mattress, that Nino’s laptop slipped off the bed and thudded onto the floor.


	9. The One Where There’s Too Much Cake

The safe house had been compromised, as had the loft. EVIL Inc. had caught on to him, but it was already too late. With Mistress Pain turned, the IJU was on its way to taking down the organization’s leaders. With Sakurai Sho’s help, EVIL Inc. could no longer fund any of its operations. 

And with his cover blown, Oh-chan was probably in a lot more danger than he was letting on. 

Even though the enemy was losing ground every day, they still might be desperate enough to go after him with all they had left. For now, Ohno was staying at IJU headquarters, sleeping on a cot that Nino had prepared for him in the Supply Lab. But after a week of being on lockdown, after all his exciting weeks trying to take down EVIL Inc. from the inside, Ohno was stir crazy.

It was decided that Ohno would be able to go out to eat, so long as Aiba accompanied him that evening. With two agents outside in plainclothes keeping an eye on the place, Aiba entered the family restaurant first, sitting in a two-person booth. Ohno came in a few minutes later, sitting in the booth behind Aiba so that they were back to back.

Ohno had come with a need for dessert, and he ordered a slice of strawberry cake. Aiba ordered the same. Since they couldn’t risk having a full-on conversation in the restaurant, Aiba decided to text the new burner phone Ohno was using.

[Grouper G Fan] _this cake is really good!_

[Unknown] _isn’t it?_

[Grouper G Fan] _going to get more_

Aiba flagged down the waitress, ordering another slice, hearing Ohno do the same behind him. He was halfway through the second slice when his phone vibrated. This time, Ohno was texting first.

[Unknown] _can agency read texts?_

Aiba took a bite and replied, raising an eyebrow.

[Grouper G Fan] _probably_

[Unknown] _what if we use line_

[Grouper G Fan] _they r monitoring all of naruse accounts you made_

[Unknown] _:( :(_

Aiba snorted, having a sip of water before finishing up the second slice of cake. Damn, but this stuff was good. In tandem, he and Ohno ordered slice number three.

[Unknown] _been stuck inside 4 a week :(_

[Grouper G Fan] _sorry. 4 ur safety_

[Unknown] _i know thx_

[Unknown] _turn on camera_

Aiba was confused for a moment, but realized that Ohno meant the camera function on Aiba’s phone. He did so, and once he was in selfie mode, he was able to hold the phone up and see that Ohno was also in selfie mode on his phone, watching him without having to turn around. He made a peace sign and smiled. Aiba did one in return. 

They ordered a fourth slice of cake. Aiba was starting to experience sugar overload, but he did feel bad for Ohno. It was like the IJU didn’t seem to care how hard he was working for them. If he wasn’t undercover, risking his life, they had him locked away at headquarters. Let the man live, Aiba thought.

[Unknown] _had meeting 2day_

[Unknown] _when this over, new job_

[Unknown] _turn on camera_

Aiba went into selfie mode again, saw Ohno was holding up his phone. The phone’s internet browser was on a Wikipedia page for Canada. Aiba nearly dropped his phone, suddenly filled with anger. It wasn’t enough that Ohno had almost single-handedly taken out the agency’s greatest enemy? And they were just going to ship him off again? When was Aiba even going to see him again? He’d just gotten him back after not knowing if he was okay for years, and they worked so well together. He was halfway through a text, begging him to turn it down, but Ohno texted him first.

[Unknown] _it’s the job, u know how it is_

[Grouper G Fan] _more cake?_

[Unknown] _definitely_

Aiba set his phone down and ordered a fifth slice of cake, unable to keep from sniffling. Oh-chan had been off in Brazil for years. How long would he be gone for this time? EVIL Inc. would topple any day, and he’d just be expected to up and leave again? He had tears in his eyes, was trying not to start openly crying in the middle of a crowded family restaurant. Ohno was sitting behind him, maybe a foot away, but instead he already felt thousands of miles away. He was so full, of sugar and feelings and irritation at the agency, but then his phone vibrated again.

[Unknown] _turn on camera_

This time when Aiba entered selfie mode, he saw that Ohno was on the Internet Movie Database page for the film The Great Escape, and Aiba wiped his tears, knowing exactly what he meant.

[Grouper G Fan] _pay. then wait 5._

Aiba called for the bill and paid, getting out of his seat and not even looking in Ohno’s direction as he left the restaurant. He found the two young junior officers outside, Nakajima and Inoo. They were sitting on a bench outside the restaurant, acting like they were on their phones. Aiba stood beside them, pretending to be waiting for a cab.

“Ohno-san’s in the bathroom, he’ll be out in a minute.”

“Senpai’s so amazing, isn’t he?” Nakajima muttered, so only Aiba and Inoo heard him.

“The most amazing,” Inoo agreed.

“Well, I’m going to head home. Make sure you get him back to headquarters, alright?”

“You got it,” Inoo said.

He wasn’t sure how long Inoo and Nakajima were going to sit outside before figuring out Ohno had given them the slip, but Aiba left them and got on the train, taking it to his stop and making the walk to his apartment building. He pulled out his keys, smiling when he saw that there was no obvious sign of someone having picked the lock.

In the darkened apartment he could see Ohno’s shape on his sofa, waiting for him.

“You’re going to get in trouble for this,” Ohno said. Aiba kept the lights off, just in case they’d been followed.

“No I won’t. You will, Mr. Great Escape.”

He shrugged out of his jacket and shoes, sitting beside Ohno on the couch. He felt far happier once Ohno twined their fingers together, squeezing. 

“I’m sorry,” Ohno said. “About Canada.”

“They think you’re good. They trust you.”

“I could have said no,” Ohno admitted. “But it’s kind of addicting, in its own way. And um, they’re paying me a lot. After this next one, I could probably take a year off, go fishing.”

“Fishing for a year?”

“It can be done,” Ohno assured him. “Nothing would make me happier.”

Aiba leaned over, resting his head on Ohno’s shoulder in the dark, knowing that their time as handler and asset was now over. That once EVIL Inc. was gone for good, Ohno would be gone too (not forever, but until his next task was finished). “Somehow, find a way to tell me you’re okay this time. It’s really hard, not knowing.”

“I will. If I came up with using Gary Grouper, I’m sure I can come up with something new.”

Aiba’s stomach made a rather noisy sound. “I kind of wanted to have crazy intense ‘I’ll really miss you’ sex, but I think I had too much cake.”

Ohno’s stomach rumbled in solidarity and he chuckled. “Me too. All that frosting, what were we thinking?” Ohno patted Aiba’s head. “We can still try. Something that won’t rumble our tummies?”

When he leaned up, kissing Ohno, he made it about thirty seconds before groaning. “You taste like straight up sugar.”

“So do you, man,” Ohno complained. “Maybe in the morning.”

“Sex for breakfast, like we used to.”

“Sounds good to me. Maybe you can even light some breakfast candles.” 

“Breakfast candles, huh?” he mumbled, laughing quietly. “What about Mistress Pain?”

“More fun with you.” Ohno nuzzled against him. “And she never wants to cuddle.”

He let Ohno wrap an arm around him and he sat close, shutting his eyes. His next words were a touch more serious. “It’s been really fun working with you again, Oh-chan. Come back home safe.”

Ohno’s voice was more sleepy than serious, but Aiba didn’t mind. “I will. I promise.”

He heard Ohno start to snore first, and he smiled, drifting off to sleep with a stomach full of cake and his heart full of hope.


	10. The One With The Truth Serum

Honestly, Aiba Masaki felt like shit.

They’d had really good intel that a group of EVIL Inc. holdouts were having a meeting at a traditional Japanese restaurant. While dinner was being served kaiseki-style, they had been ordered to bust up the meeting during the second to last course and arrest everyone. No dessert for evildoers tonight, Director Kimura had said.

But the restaurant had been booby trapped, one last hurrah from EVIL Inc. One wing of the restaurant had exploded, the shockwave flinging them all back. Aiba had been on a team led by Senior Operations Officer Nagase, but when he woke up, trapped in a small concrete holding cell, the only person with him was Jun.

They’d been held here for what had to be hours now. Every hour on the hour, some EVIL Inc. thugs came in the room, pulling one of them away to try and interrogate them. Over and over they were questioned - what does IJU know? Where is Naruse Ryo? Tell us where IJU headquarters is. But of course, he and Jun had been well-trained to withstand interrogation techniques.

Not that it felt that good to be punched in the face. Or, as they’d just done to Aiba in his last round of questioning, get injected with something. He was flung back into the cell, landing heavily. He probably had bruised ribs, and the less he and Jun were willing to tell them, the worse his injuries were going to get. Broken bones were probably next on the agenda, and Aiba wasn’t looking forward to it.

Jun was sporting a black eye and had already spat out part of a tooth earlier. Aiba crawled across the floor, sitting by his side. “Welcome back,” Jun said.

“Hello again.”

They sat there, exhausted and annoyed, for a few minutes without speaking. Usually when one of them was brought back, the other was taken. He and Jun had barely had a chance to speak to one another since they’d arrived, and they certainly hadn’t spoken since that awkward kiss they’d shared at Okada’s party. Aiba was rather grateful that if he had to be trapped with anyone it was Jun. At the very least, Jun’s competitive nature meant that he’d withstand the interrogation as long as Aiba did, if only to prove he was his equal.

On the other hand, that meant whatever punishments Aiba was enduring, Jun was enduring them too, and he didn’t much like that. 

The room they were in was probably being filmed, though they’d been unable to spot any cameras so far. It was just another reason to keep quiet. If they talked about IJU, about Ohno’s mission, about anything that might give EVIL Inc. information or any sort of advantage, they’d lose. Still, it didn’t make Aiba feel any better.

He held out his arm, pushing up his sleeve to show Jun the red mark on the inside of his wrist. “My turn to get stabbed.” At least they’d gotten a vein on the second try.

Jun seemed a lot woozier, showing him a matching mark on his own wrist. “They’re…switching…tactics. Drugs now. Barbiturates maybe…sodium…sodium…”

“Sodium pentothal?”

Jun weakly raised his hand, pointing at Aiba. “That’s…probably it. Sucked in…uh, chemistry.”

Oh great, they were trying to get them high on a ‘truth serum’ to extract answers faster. Fortunately, they’d been trained to withstand that too, but that of course depended on the dosage. Aiba moved closer to Jun, lowering his voice. “So they’re going to let us stew in here, see what we confess.”

“Yup.”

“And when we don’t, we’ll get brought out again, shot up with another dose, probably punched a few more times…”

“Likely.”

Aiba sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. “Sucks.”

“Agreed.”

Since Aiba hadn’t been sitting in here with drugs flowing through his bloodstream as long as Jun had, he tried to take charge. “Well they want the truth, let’s give them the truth.”

“Huh?”

“Anything but what they want to hear.” He cleared his throat. His ribs ached, but he raised his voice. “My favorite color is green!”

Jun turned to look at him, and despite the drugs in his system, he still managed to look at Aiba like he was the one who was messed up. “Aiba-san…the fuck are you doing?”

“I have a huge birthmark on my shoulder. Huge!”

Jun seemed to catch on. Maybe they’d talk themselves hoarse first. “I…I love the Beatles.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Aiba said, patting Jun’s leg in excitement. Jun simply shrugged, and Aiba realized he had to keep going. “When I was growing up, I wanted to be a professional baseball player!”

“So did I,” Jun said, and Aiba thought he was blushing a little. He cleared his throat, blinking a few times. “In school one year, in school for uh, for Valentine’s Day…” Jun was struggling to get words out, but Aiba was amazed with his persistence. “All the girls in class gave me chocolates!”

“Really?” Aiba replied, surprised. “All of them?”

The old Jun was very recognizable in that moment, squaring his shoulders and holding his head high. “Every single one of them.”

Aiba grinned, trying not to laugh and injure his ribs any more. “One time, I had a crush on this girl but I gave her deodorant as a gift.”

“That is the dumbest thing I ever heard,” Jun said, chuckling.

They must have kept rattling off lame facts about themselves for another twenty minutes, but the door to their little holding cell didn’t open. They didn’t hear footsteps in the hall. For EVIL Inc. henchmen they were actually rather patient. And Aiba could tell the drug was starting to affect him considerably. He started slurring his words a bit, and had to use every logical part of his brain to keep from turning the “Aiba facts” he was offering into admissions about his sex life and related preferences.

Jun was flagging a bit, having scooted over a little so he could rest at Aiba’s side, leaning his head on his shoulder. Whatever they’d been injected with might not have been just truth serum.

Aiba had given up on shouting. If the room was being recorded or was bugged, it would pick up whatever he said at normal volume too. “I went on a mission in Australia and I took a taxi, but then I forgot the address for my hotel. I had to call the Senior Operations Officer to come find me.”

Jun snorted at that. “I’m amazed you’re still alive, Aiba-san.”

“Quiet you, we’re on the same side here.”

“I know.”

Jun’s hand moved to rest on Aiba’s thigh. He looked over, confused. “Jun-kun?”

“When I kissed you…at the bar, I meant it.”

Aiba hurried to try and cover Jun’s mouth with his hand, eyes widening. “You don’t…you don’t have to talk about that here.”

“Mmfhmmmuh fmmmh!” Aiba moved his hand. “Stop doing that…and I’m telling the…truth, okay?”

“You’re on drugs.”

“So then you know…it’s not a lie…”

“I’m on drugs too so…it doesn’t count if you tell me.” He covered Jun’s mouth again anyway, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. “We were drunk. It’s okay.”

Jun’s eyes, mostly glazed over from whatever he’d been injected with, quickly flashed in anger. He was stronger than Aiba even imagined. “Mmfmmhmm!”

“Jun-kun, listen.”

He received an irritated eyebrow raise in response. He kept whispering since he didn’t think this was any of EVIL Inc.’s damn business.

“I like you too. A lot actually. And I have for a while. But you have confessed feelings to me twice now, both times where you’re not quite yourself. So until you can tell me this when you’re not, you know, under the influence of something, let’s not go down that road…”

He tentatively took his hand away, but only because he half expected Jun to bite him.

Jun scowled at him rather adorably. “Fine.”

The door to the cell suddenly opened, and Aiba did his best to try and get to his feet and into a fighting stance. He managed to get to his knees, half slumped against the wall with his hands out in an attempt at some Bruce Lee maneuver. Thankfully, it wasn’t the EVIL Inc. thugs.

“Oh-chan!” Aiba cried, using the wall to scoot up and get to his feet.

Ohno hurried inside, flanked by at least five more IJU officers in tactical gear. He held Aiba’s face in his hands. “Aiba-chan, are you okay?”

“Is…is _he_ okay?” Jun grumbled from his spot on the floor. He’d pretty much fallen over without Aiba to hold him up. “I’m missing…missing a…what’s it called again…”

“A tooth!” Aiba said, nudging him gently with his foot before turning back to Ohno. “We’re kind of high on something right now.”

Ohno chuckled, patting Aiba’s cheek. “Well you’re safe now.” He raised his voice a bit. “Both of you.”

He gestured for some of the other officers to help Jun.

“We didn’t tell them anything,” Aiba said, wincing when Ohno tried to hug him and squeezed him a bit too hard around the middle. “Ah, you shouldn’t do that.”

Ohno grinned. “Sorry. You’ll be happy to know that your interrogators have been arrested, along with everyone else associated with the attack at the restaurant.”

“What about Nagase-kun? The others and…”

“Some injuries,” Ohno said, “but nothing too serious. EVIL Inc. sucks at building bombs, thankfully.”

As the other officers helped a limping Jun from the room, Aiba watched him go, holding onto Ohno for support.

“Just curious, Oh-chan, did you hear anything? In here I mean?”

Ohno patted his shoulder. “I definitely didn’t hear you confess your love to Matsumoto Jun. Definitely didn’t hear that.”

He gave Ohno a shove, rolling his eyes. “Well that’s a relief, huh?”

-

Three weeks later, Aiba’s doorbell rang. He would be cleared for active duty again in another week as he healed, so he took it easy on the way to answer. Thankfully none of his ribs had broken, but the purple bruising had turned to a sickly yellow and still covered half his ribcage. As for the drug cocktail he’d been injected with, it had gradually worn off and a few days detoxing in the hospital had gotten him all sorted out again.

He wasn’t expecting any visitors, but Nino sometimes liked to drop by if he wanted a free home-cooked meal and some follow-up sex. Aiba wasn’t entirely averse to that tonight since he was nice and relaxed after having a bath, so he looked out the peephole expecting to see Nino’s greedy face. He instead found the too serious, too handsome, too amazing face of Matsumoto Jun.

He stepped back, swallowing in nervousness. They’d been avoiding each other at work, though for once it was Aiba doing the avoiding, finding excuses to walk in the opposite direction whenever Jun approached him. Well, he couldn’t avoid him forever. He unlocked the door and opened it.

“How did you get my address?” Aiba asked warily.

“Ninomiya.”

He sighed. “He would, wouldn’t he?” He stepped back. “Come on in.”

Jun was dressed casually in a light jacket, a form-hugging gray t-shirt, and jeans. Aiba hung up his jacket for him, kind of wanting to apologize for the baggy sweats he was wearing. But hey, Jun had arrived unannounced, hadn’t he?

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Ah, no, that’s okay,” Jun said, hands shoved in his pockets and his sharp eyes taking in the sights of Aiba’s apartment. Probably judging in his special Matsumoto Jun way.

Aiba gestured to the couch. “You wanna watch TV or something?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath, looking Jun straight in the eye. “Then what do you want?”

Jun didn’t move, but the look he was giving Aiba softened a little. “You told me to do something a few weeks ago. You said that if I wanted to confess to you, I should do it when I wasn’t drunk or on drugs. And I am not, although I did get my crown put on at the dentist and was on novocaine the other day.”

Aiba froze in place, wondering if this was really happening. Jun, who months back wouldn’t even let Aiba have one of his stupid brownies, had gotten his address from Nino and had come here to confess to him.

“So um,” Jun said quietly, shrugging a bit. “I know I haven’t always been nice to you, and that’s my problem, not yours. It’s because I’ve respected you so long, all the things you’ve done and accomplished at the agency. I just let my kind of uh, competitive side mask that.”

“I see,” he managed to say in reply.

Jun forged ahead. “You’ve always been really tolerant of my bad attitude, and I think that just made it worse, you know? Like, I convinced myself that I was nothing to you. Just some loser you kept beating over and over…”

“That’s so dumb,” Aiba said bluntly, stopping Jun mid-sentence. “You’re amazing. You’re one of the best agents we’ve got, so don’t talk about yourself that way.”

“But you can run faster and…”

“What does that matter? Jun-kun, you and I save Japan, hell, we sometimes save the world. Again and again we risk our lives, we save people. We still do all of it knowing that the general public will never know it was us that got that vital information, that it was us who put that bad guy in jail, that it was us who uncovered this or that criminal group plotting to hurt people.” Aiba stepped forward, resting a hand on Jun’s shoulder. “I never wanted to compete with you. I’ve always wanted to _work_ with you. And when we were there, in that cell together, we got out because we didn’t give in, we fought against what they tried to do to us. We did our jobs and we did them well. Together.”

“To be fair,” Jun pointed out, “it was Ohno-san who saved the day.”

Aiba laughed. “Yeah, he does that sometimes.”

Jun had relaxed a little, grinning. “Basically I want to apologize, for all these years I’ve been terrible. I can’t promise that I won’t keep wanting to win, but at the very least, I’d like to be friends.”

Aiba clung to the hope in his heart. “Just friends?”

The tips of Jun’s ears were reddening. “Well, uh…friends at work.”

“But outside of work?” Aiba asked, beaming from ear to ear.

“Were you aware that you are considered the best lay in all of IJU?”

Aiba’s eyes widened. “Huh?”

Before he could comprehend what that meant (and whether it ought to please him or worry him), Jun was leaning toward him. It was way better than it had been at the bar, feeling Jun’s hot mouth pressed against his own but without the irritating flavor of tequila lingering. Finally they were doing this the right way. And all it had taken was a stolen pair of socks, a broken bicycle, some brownies, a bunch of trash talking emails, a weird Raiders of the Lost Ark shots contest, a night trapped together in…

Well, okay, so it had taken more than he’d ever anticipated but as soon as Jun’s arms snaked around him, clinging possessively, Aiba didn’t really care about the ‘how we got here’ and just focused on the ‘here’ itself.

They could work on the whole friendship thing later, Aiba decided once he’d managed to push Jun down the hall, the pair of them losing clothes and inhibitions the whole way. Once he got to enjoy the sight of Jun without a shirt, he figured the ranking of ‘best lay at IJU’ needed some adjustments. They stumbled over some clothes Aiba had neglected to put away, trying to make it to the bed while also trying to get one another’s pants off.

Finally Aiba stopped them, kicking his jeans off and pointing at Jun. “You! Mr. Competitive Always! How’s this going to work?”

“What?” Jun asked, cheeks flushed and lips already swollen from the intense, demanding liplocks they’d shared all the way down the hall.

“I’m asking what you’d prefer, since you’ve always wanted to defeat me. Does that mean I fuck you or you fuck me?”

“Oh,” Jun replied, scratching his head. He chuckled. “I actually…uh, never thought about…”

Aiba surprised him, shoving him onto the bed on his back. “You are lying! You are totally lying to me.”

“Okay, I’m lying to you. But this is your house so…”

“Oh for goodness sake,” Aiba complained, leaving Jun sprawled on the mattress and going to his bedside table, finding a box of condoms and some lube. “If you want to fuck me, just say it.”

Jun was probably not used to Aiba being so…forceful. Aiba couldn’t exactly help it, after so many weeks of helping Oh-chan out with Mistress Pain. He was more insistent than he’d ever been in bed before, but Jun was finding this out for the very first time.

“I would like to fuck you,” Jun said, as though saying the words out loud were particularly embarrassing. Said like that, they kind of were.

“That’s fine,” Aiba said anyhow, tossing the condom box onto Jun’s bare chest. “But just to keep things evenly matched, since we _are_ rivals after all, I get to be on top.”

Jun laughed, shaking his head. “That sounds perfect.” He opened the box, tugging one out. “Is it always like this with you?”

Aiba licked his lips, reaching forward to drag Jun’s underwear off. “It can be. I’m a fun guy, Jun-kun. You’ve just been too stubborn all these years to bother finding that out.”

Jun was just as diligent and careful when it came to bedroom behavior as he was with his work. Probably came from his many, many years’ experience playing seducer. Aiba was happy to finally be the recipient of it. Jun took his time, kissing slowly, teasingly, slipping his tongue into Aiba’s mouth. Meanwhile his fingers were doing remarkable things elsewhere, and before too long, Aiba was panting, ready, and demanding.

He helped Jun roll a condom on, getting on top of him and offering him a smile. “Now keep in mind, it doesn’t matter which one of us comes first,” he said, “I’d rather you not turn this into a competition.”

Jun shut his eyes. “This was supposed to be hot. In my fantasies this was always hot, but you’re making me laugh. Stop.”

“Alright, alright,” he said agreeably, and things became far less funny as Aiba sank down slowly, taking Jun’s hard cock into him inch by inch. He was full, almost achingly so, and had a feeling that his ribs were not going to thank him for this come morning. Oh well, he thought, wasn’t every day he got to have sex with Matsumoto Jun for the first time. He started to move, sighing in pleasure as he set the pace, starting slow. 

“You were right,” Jun eventually said, if only to break their silence, the bedroom heavy with the filthy sound of Aiba’s ass colliding with Jun’s body in a steady rhythm.

“Right about what?” he asked, twisting one of Jun’s nipples between his fingers and earning a groan in reply.

Jun batted his hand away, pointing up. “Your shoulder. Your birthmark. It really is huge.”

“Like it?” Aiba couldn’t help but lift his hand, brushing against the darkened patch of skin.

“Love it,” Jun admitted.

“Good.”

Eventually they gave up on the small talk, if only because Aiba was being fucked so well and so hard that he could only concentrate on breathing, on trying not to laugh in disbelief over how good it felt to have Jun and his hard, lean body under him. He tried to slow them down, adjusting his position a bit and leaning forward so he could kiss Jun, pressing small and sweet little kisses against his lips, against some of the little beauty marks on his face and neck. But then competitive Jun returned, and he was kissing back, pounding into Aiba and sucking on his lower lip, nibbling at the sensitive skin.

He hurriedly moved back into more of a sitting position, retaliating by twisting Jun’s nipples again. Oh well, so much for not making things into a competition. With one hand balanced on Jun’s chest, not caring how hard he was pushing down, Aiba took his cock in the other, working himself as he ground himself down on Jun. For his part, Jun just let him do it, occasionally thrusting his hips up to try and knock Aiba off balance. 

It soon became too much to handle at once. Jun started to help him along, batting Aiba’s hand aside and pumping his cock for him. “Oh fuck,” Aiba cried, laughing in surprise as Jun lent him a helping hand. He gave into it, shutting his eyes and arching up and into Jun’s palm. He distinctly heard Jun laugh when he came, but Aiba didn’t care if he’d lost. He certainly didn’t feel that way, especially as Jun’s messy, come-stickied hand came around, grabbing Aiba’s ass and squeezing hard. He gasped, feeling Jun move faster beneath him until he was moaning, coming with a deep groan.

He opened his eyes, looking down to see that Jun was as much of a sweaty mess as he was. “Do you feel better now?” he asked, his voice a bit scratchy from all the noise he’d been making.

“Better?”

“Since I came first? You lasted longer.”

Jun squeezed his ass again, pretending to be unbothered. “Some of us are built for speed, Aiba-san, and then some of us, I guess we’re more about stamina.”

Aiba laughed, moving off of Jun and rolling his eyes. “You’re horrible.”

“And you like me.”

Aiba pressed a kiss to Jun’s bicep, already missing the feeling of him hard and deep inside him. “Yeah, I definitely like you.”

-

He woke somehow to a mattress without sheets, a blanket tossed haphazardly over his naked body. His ribs twinged as he got out of bed, wrapping the blanket around him like a royal robe. He found Matsumoto Jun loading his bedsheets into his washing machine, adding some soap. Aiba stood there, amused as Jun happily did chores in an apartment that wasn’t his own.

“How did you get the sheets off the bed without waking me?”

Jun shut the machine. “I made you come three times last night. You weren’t going anywhere.”

Aiba nodded. That certainly made sense. They’d had sex like they were making up for lost time. “Is that standard procedure with all your seduction missions? Acquire a target, screw them until they can’t even move?”

Jun slipped away from the machine, looking rather pleased with himself. “You seem to be on your feet, Aiba-san. That would mean I’ve failed my mission.”

“Well, as we both know, the Intel Japan Unit is not too pleased with mission failures.” Aiba moved the blanket aside, grinning when Jun’s gaze moved lower in an instant. “Guess you’ll have to keep trying.”

Jun saluted him. “We really are the best this agency has to offer, Junior Operations Officer Aiba.”

He returned the salute with equal fervor. “Couldn’t agree more, Junior Operations Officer Matsumoto.”

Aiba dropped and left the blanket in the hall, not at all surprised to hear the footsteps of his extremely competitive colleague following right behind.


End file.
